Bush Budget Proposes 13-Month O2 Cap

Washington

HME providers were disheartened after President Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act into law last month. And home care was dealt another blow when the president released his FY 2007 budget proposal.

While the DRA caps Medicare rentals of oxygen equipment at 36 months and transfers title to the beneficiary at that time (see story below), the president’s budget calls for further shortening the rental period to 13 months.

The caps are only part of the $36 billion in the administration’s proposed reductions to Medicare over five years. Bush’s $2.77 trillion budget also calls for $1.5 billion in Medicaid cuts over the same period.

Other home care proposals include a freeze on home health reimbursement and elimination of the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs.

“Continuing cuts to home care erode the cost-effective infrastructure of home care that will be essential to the nation’s health care needs, especially as baby boomers near Medicare eligibility,” said Tom Ryan, chairman of the American Association for Homecare and CEO of Homecare Concepts in Farmingdale, N.Y.

Seth Johnson, chair of AAHomecare’s Rehab and Assistive Technology Council and director of government affairs for Pride Mobility, said the prospect of eliminating the first-month purchase option for power chairs is worrisome because they are provided to beneficiaries with long-term disabilities, and more than 95 percent are purchased in the first month.

Because it is up to Congress to decide whether to enact legislation containing any provisions from the president’s budget proposal, AAHomecare said, “it will be important for the home care community to be vocal about its opposition to these proposed changes.”

However, the president’s budget request does call for an increase in some areas of health care spending, including a $58 million boost in health information technology funding for Health and Human Services.

In a Nutshell

Home care provisions in the 2007 budget proposal include:

• capping oxygen equipment rentals at 13 months
• eliminating the first-month purchases for power chairs
• freezing home health care reimbursements
• $36 billion in reductions to Medicare and $1.5 billion to Medicaid
• $58 million increase (total of $169 million) in health information technology spending