The issue of competitive bidding is garnering attention from consumers as well. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal delved into the topic in an article headlined “Medicare Rules on Equipment Worry Patients.”
“Millions of older and disabled people could face stiff new restrictions on where they go for medical equipment under a Medicare plan to overhaul how the federal insurer pays for such devices,” wrote reporter Barbara Martinez.
The article quoted AAHomecare President Tyler Wilson as saying, “Competitive bidding is going to eliminate 90 percent of home care providers. The result is going to be lower quality and lower access to care for seniors and people with disabilities.”
Martinez also talked to other organizations representing beneficiaries, such as the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the United Spinal Association. Each indicated concern about patient access to proper equipment. And Jerry Jones, a ventilator-dependent patient from Hamilton, Ohio, told the newspaper he uses multiple pieces of equipment to deal with his pulmonary hypertension. He’s worried, he said, about losing his current provider who comes out to check all the equipment once a week.
But the story also quoted CMS' Laurence Wilson, director of the chronic care policy group, who said competitive bidding would provide "value to Medicare and its beneficiaries, as well as taxpayers." The newspaper noted Medicare could save $1 billion a year with the bidding program in place, pointing out that the government pays "$4,000 for a power wheelchair, for instance," but says the same item "can be bought on the Internet for $2,200."
The story prompted Waterloo, Iowa-based member services group VGM to urge its members to forward the article “to all beneficiaries and encourage them to get in touch with their congressional members to ‘raise the alarm.’” AAHomecare sent the article to more than 400 Capitol Hill offices.
Meanwhile, AAHomecare moved to attack competitive bidding from another angle. In a congressional email and press releases on Wednesday, the association applauded President Barack Obama’s plan to aid small businesses by making $15 billion in loans available. However, the association noted, the president could actually save multitudes of small businesses “by rescinding the ‘competitive’ bidding regulations issued in the final hours of the previous administration.”
In its email, AAHomecare recommended legislators request that Obama rescind the competitive bidding rule and “consider ways in which the home medical sector already provides a cost-effective and quality-focused health care solution to Americans today.”