Dealing with Bidzilla

As a kid, my son’s favorite movie was one of the hokiest Japanese sci-fi monster flicks ever. I can’t count the number of times that on family movie night, we made a big bowl of popcorn and watched “Infra-Man.”

The rubber-suited monsters that were wreaking havoc on the countryside looked like they had just crawled out of the toy chest. The name for the villainess controlling them came out as “Dragon-Mom” when it was over-dubbed in English. But Infra-Man always had all kinds of karate moves and fantastic jumps and flips that would somehow save the day.

So where’s Infra-Man when you need him? If he were saving the HME day right now, I’ll bet he could just zap competitive bidding with some giant magic ray and blitz it into oblivion. That would be pretty cool.

Alas, kids grow up, and Infra-Man has been replaced by more sophisticated characters with as many superpowers as today’s special effects can muster. Come to think of it, even the Blockbuster where we rented the movie a gazillion times is gone, too. It looks like this industry has got to come up with a real-life weapon to fight competitive bidding, which has been wreaking its own form of havoc in nine of this country’s largest cities since January 1.

Consultant Miriam Lieber says after only three months Round 1 providers are already feeling the squeeze, and she’s hearing “almost daily” of someone who, unable to make payroll, has thrown in the towel.

Economist Peter Cramton worries that established providers with significant share have been cut out of Medicare business, many replaced by unknown entities (some apparently with little or no experience). His scary Round 1 analysis shows that in several categories — mail-order diabetic supplies, complex rehab and standard power wheelchairs — more than 80 percent of existing providers lost contracts. That is turning the market “upside down,” he says.

AAHomecare reports that complaints about the job-killing program are also coming from beneficiaries who can’t get the equipment they need from the providers they want to use, those local providers they trust.

The good news is there actually is a bid-blasting defense, and it’s called H.R. 1041. This new bill would repeal the competitive bidding program entirely. Of course, it’s not that easy. The legislation must make it through a vote in the House and pick up a companion in the Senate before we can hope for any sort of action.

Those are tough odds, but providers I met at AAHomecare’s Legislative Conference last month think they’ve got a shot at beating them. Those 250-plus providers who began the bill’s push up Capitol Hill can’t do it alone, however. Just like the villagers who banded together to defeat the monsters in our movie, it’s going to take a full-out lobbying effort from providers across the nation to convince Congress competitive bidding ought to be repealed.

Is that effort worth it? I think so. Because if it fails, you can sit back on your sofa and tell your kids about your used-to-be HME business, which has faded into the days of once-wases like Infra-Man and Blockbuster. If you are among the 90 percent of companies doing business with Medicare that some industry experts predict could vanish under the bidding program, that won’t be science fiction; it will be your life.