Houston After letting go 400 employees in the past year, The Scooter Store announced last month it is moving out of Houston's Medicare power wheelchair

Houston

After letting go 400 employees in the past year, The Scooter
Store announced last month it is moving out of Houston's Medicare
power wheelchair market because of what it calls “drastically
more restrictive interpretations of coverage guidance than anywhere
else in the country,” according to a company statement.

“We deeply regret having to take this action,” said
President Mike Pfister, “but we are left with no
choice.”

The company said it will no longer provide wheelchairs and
scooters to Houston-area Medicare beneficiaries on an assigned
basis. It is also closing its local distribution center and will
transfer those functions to a retail location elsewhere in the
city. The company added it will continue power wheelchair sales in
Houston to those who pay with cash, credit or private
insurance.

Since Jan. 1, the New Braunfels, Texas-based company said it has
been reimbursed for only eight of the more than 500 wheelchairs it
delivered to Harris County (Houston), Texas, the epicenter of the
government's Operation Wheeler Dealer crackdown on power wheelchair
fraud and abuse.

“We applaud and support CMS' efforts to combat
fraud,” Pfister said. “But the current crisis is not
about fraud. The real injustice today is the geographical
discrimination against hundreds of qualifying beneficiaries who are
being penalized only because they live near Houston.”

Denied and unpaid claims for power wheelchairs in the Houston
area over the last year have cost the company more than $2.5
million, the mobility provider said. Elsewhere in the country, the
company added, 95 percent of its power chair claims have been
approved.