Congress Backs Functional Definition of Nonambulatory

Washington

The Senate Appropriations Committee has put its unanimous support behind a broader definition of “nonambulatory,” giving traction to the mobility industry’s push for Medicare coverage policy to include a functional standard for the term.

On Sept. 15, the committee approved a $64.5-billion spending bill that funds HHS for fiscal 2005. Attached to the bill is a report pressing CMS to develop policy “firmly based on a functional standard of nonambulatory. The Committee believes beneficiaries who cannot perform their basic acts of daily living, toileting, food preparation and emergency egress are nonambulatory and must have access to this mobility benefit to function independently.”

The language mirrors that used in a report attached to the House HHS funding bill, which easily passed 388-13 on Sept. 9. With the language in both the House and Senate version of the bill, it is most likely to appear in the bill’s final version, according to Seth Johnson, vice president of government relations for Exeter, Pa.-based Pride Mobility.

While the report language doesn’t hold the force of law, CMS officials will be pressured to follow it, since the recommendations come from the committees that approve funding for the agency, Johnson said.