Heard at AAHomecare’s Legislative Conference

WASHINGTON — As usual, HME providers, manufacturers and
speakers attending the American
Association for Homecare’s Legislative Conference last week had
plenty of subjects to talk about, and plenty of opinions:

On HME’s message to Congress:
“We’re not really fraudulent. We’re not overpaid. We’re a small
percentage of the whole pie. We’re the solution, not the problem.
Health care costs are going up. The demographics are there that
home care needs to be there. It doesn’t make sense to eliminate 90
percent of the providers when there’s going to be more demand. I
would just like my congressmen to get that.”

— Patrick Hanna, BK Home Medical Services,
Tiffin, Ohio

On competitive bidding:
“I’ve been deeply involved in your problems with competitive
bidding … The experience in Pittsburgh was disastrous. It
appears that the administration is heading for competitive bidding
again. Well, it can be done sensibly or it can be done foolishly,
as they did it last time … Now is the time to act.”

— Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

“I think the competitive bidding train is on the track. We have
to work to come up with best implementation plan of that through
the PAOC … but my real hope is that it won’t turn out OK and
it will fall on its face after being implemented. I think it’s a
flawed policy, and my hope is that Congress and CMS will see that
and enact laws to change it in the future.”

— Joel Mills, Advanced Home Care, Greensboro,
N.C.

“My biggest fear is that we will see the same low bidding as we
did in Round One.”

— Dave McCausland, The ROHO Group, Belleville,
Ill.

“I can’t think of one thing good for the patient about
competitive bidding.”

— Joel Marx, Medical Service Co.,
Cleveland

“There is no tomorrow. There is no coming back. This is a death
knell coming toward our industry.”

— John Gallagher, VGM, Waterloo, Iowa

On how CMS perceives the
industry:
“You are all overpaid and competitive bidding validated that
… There is just a perception that it’s an unethical
business.”

— Thomas Barker, Foley Hoag, Washington, and a
former CMS staffer

On the oxygen cap:
“The reality is, as people start to struggle and businesses start
to fail, where are those patients going to end up? Providers aren’t
going to take on a patient with no reimbursement; someone else
already got the payment for 36 months. It’s only going to affect
the patients.”

— A. J. Filippis, Wright & Filippis,
Rochester Hills, Mich.

On support of long-term oxygen
reform:
“I’m willing to roll the dice on oxygen reform even with the
unknowns in it because I think that whatever would come out of
oxygen reform, if it becomes law, would be better than the current
state.”

— Scott Lloyd, Extrakare, Norcross, Ga.

“Philosophically, legislatively and business-wise, this is the
best horse for us to get on. There are certainly differences of
opinion and every one is valid, but we need to be mindful of the
timeframe.”

— Don Clayback, The MED Group, Lubbock,
Texas

On support of the HOPP Act:
“What is real and in front of us is the 36-month cap, and I’m
playing off that with the idea of let’s do something now to keep
moving forward and … look at oxygen reform down the road. You
have to do something to keep everyone in the game so we can achieve
that goal, which is to reform the way oxygen is reimbursed.”

— Wayne Knewasser, Premier Home Care,
Louisville, Ky.

“The HOPP Act is something I feel like we have right now. I can
go to Capitol Hill and talk to my congressmen about something that
is already there that they can vote on, whereas reform is something
that is coming … I’m also going to talk about reform and let
them know it’s coming down the line and we’ll appreciate support
for that, too, but right now we need to concentrate on what we
have.”

— Tammy Johnson, Ablecare, Georgetown,
Ky.

On health care reform:
“Congress has traditionally under-funded the ability to get treated
at home … If a patient decides that home care is the best
option, why should the government be in a position to say no?”

— Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas

On lobbying in Washington:
“Certainly I think it’s worthwhile. If we choose as an industry not
to do this, we place ourselves at risk. We will never be
heard.”

— Jason Jacobs, Barnes Healthcare Services,
Valdosta, Ga.

“Between Oregon and Washington, we have had 16 legislative
visits. We have written many letters to all of our legislators but
we haven’t gotten a strong opinion back as to where they stand. So
we are playing a little bit more hardball, and the purpose of this
trip is to get a definitive answer as to whether they are
supporting our organization’s causes and issues or whether they are
not. We hope the response from our legislators when we see them in
their offices is going to be more positive.”

— Tom Coogan, Care Medical and Rehabilitation
Equipment, Portland, Ore.

On keeping up the effort:
“There is a whole new administration and a lot of new legislative
aides, and it’s overwhelming how much work we have to do in
explaining to these new young aides in Washington what’s going on.
It’s kind of like starting from scratch, but we have to do it.”

— Carol Gilligan, Health Aid of Ohio,
Cleveland