WASHINGTON--After months of frustration in their battle for a complex rehab carve-out from competitive bidding, stakeholders left Washington, D.C., last week feeling cautiously optimistic following a successful call-in effort to legislators, a warm reception to their visits on Capitol Hill and the promise of a companion bill to H.R. 2231.
Members and supporters of the National Registry of Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers and the National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology journeyed to the capital last week for CELA '08, a combined educational and legislative advocacy event. Their aim was to lobby for support of H.R. 2231, a bill authored by Reps. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Ron Lewis, R-Ky, that would exempt complex rehab from the DMEPOS competitive bidding program.
For once, things turned out better than planned. The organizations had hoped for 120 people to visit legislators Thursday, but more than 200 turned out, organizers said.
“We had a lot of visits [to legislators], and the reports I got back were pretty much all favorable. People seemed to understand and sympathize with the issue,” said Sharon Hildebrandt, executive director of NCART.
Hildebrandt said she expected more legislators would sign on to H.R. 2231 as cosponsors this week. “We were trying to generate more support with the [House] bill, and some did agree to sign on,” she said.
“We had a real good reception from them,” she added, noting that while most of the legislators were familiar with competitive bidding, they were not particularly knowledgeable about complex rehab. To help educate them about the sector, advocates were armed with photos of products and people using them, she said.
“Once we showed them the photos, they seemed to understand it much better. We told them, 'These are not the kind of wheelchairs you see on television. These are very customized wheelchairs with a special seating system.'”
While the photos helped, the best advocacy for a complex rehab carve-out came from users themselves, Hildebrandt said.
“We had some consumers join us on some of the visits, and that was ... invaluable,” she said. “They demonstrated their chairs and told how the seating systems helped them. [Most legislators] had never seen a complex system before, and now they saw why it was important and how it aided the individual in being more independent. They got a better appreciation for what it was. It's something these folks are in for 12 hours or more a day.”
The visits were supported by a strong call-in effort on Tuesday. Stakeholders placed 4,588 calls to members of Congress who sit on committees that affect Medicare legislation.
“We had hoped for a thousand calls,” said Hildebrandt. “This was four-and-a-half times what we expected.”
All of this sets the stage for the announcement of a Senate companion bill to H.R. 2231.
“We've been waiting for it to drop, but we understand it is to be introduced [this] week,” Hildebrandt said.
"Ever since we found out that the Senate is where Medicare legislation is going to originate this [year], we've been pushing hard to get a companion bill there," said Tim Pederson, CEO of WestMed Rehab, Rapid City, S.D., and chair of the American Association for Homecare's Rehab and Assistive Technology Council.
If the companion bill is introduced this week, both Pederson and Hildebrant said the rehab community's next objective will be to get the carve-out language included in the Medicare legislation the Senate is currently crafting. Because neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would have a chance of moving forward on their own, the carve-out provision needs to ride on another, larger bill, the rehab advocates said.
Nevertheless, both Pederson and Hildebrant said last week on the Hill was encouraging.
"Every time we visit the Hill we get more support ... Legislators understand the issues and they realize the unintended consequences of including complex rehab in competitive bidding, so that in and of itself is a great victory," Pederson said.
Concluded Hildebrant, “We definitely believe we will see some results here.”