A New Year

First, and foremost, I hope you had a joyous holiday season, and may you have a safe and healthy 2005. Yes, it’s January, and a young man’s fancy turns to basketball, hockey and Medicare reimbursement. Okay, hockey might be a stretch for some of us.

Before we look ahead, let’s see what we’ve learned from this past year. First of all, we know that legislative provisions that can have a profound impact on our businesses can be added to a large bill in Congress right up until the time it is voted on. The FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan) provision we must start living with now is classic proof of that.

We learned that an uninformed Congress is more likely to produce bad legislation than a legislature that has facts and reliable data at its disposal. We learned that it takes a prolonged effort, utilizing multiple contacts over time, to educate policymakers.

We also discovered that, thanks to progressive leadership, CMS has proven to be a willing listener and negotiator when presented with facts and credible data.

So as we settle in to adapting to FEHBP reductions and a significant cut in respiratory medications’ move to ASP (average sales price) plus-6-percent, we need to look at what the New Year may hold for us.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve been reading and hearing about the budget deficit our country now faces. There is going to be a concerted effort by our legislature to pass a budget deficit reduction bill in the coming months. I will leave it to others more expert than I am to tell you how that might impact us, but it is a safe bet we will be at high risk for more cuts.

It is also a safe bet that CMS will be looking at key product lines again to evaluate if further cuts are viable. While AAHomecare had some great successes this past year, the fact remains that some companies are being forced to exit certain product lines and others are going out of business. How many suppliers must we lose before it is no longer acceptable?

Quite simply, my friends, the job we have ahead of us is a big one. We must educate, advocate and legislate. We need to continue to educate our legislators on the value of home care as well as the critical nature of the services we provide in conjunction with the equipment each patient receives.

We need to have every member of Congress advocate a period of stability for our industry. Multiple reimbursement cuts and increased regulatory requirements continue to make this an industry in a constant state of change. Congress must insist that CMS look elsewhere for further cuts in Medicare dollars and allow time to evaluate the impact of all existing cuts on patient access to key product lines.

Finally, in the case of the FEHBP cuts, we must continue to support legislation in the form of H.R. 4491, and get rid of this poor policy.

We cannot do this without your help. If you belong to AAHomecare, read your weekly updates and continue to work with your legislators. If you don’t belong to AAH, I beg you to consider joining now. The next 24 months could well define the next decade in home care.

Become part of the solution … today!

Tim Pontius, RRT, is president of Young Medical Services in Toledo, Ohio, and chairman of the American Association for Homecare. He can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 419/471-1919.