HomeCare News

ELYRIA, Ohio--Invacare's Corp.'s Team Invacare placed first in the men's wheelchair division and second in the women's wheelchair division in the 113th Boston Marathon last week.
 

ATLANTA — HME providers who won contracts in the aborted Round One of DMEPOS competitive bidding last year plan to campaign against the newest attempt to implement the program, they told HomeCare Monday last week.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida providers are scrambling to quash an effort that would establish a competitive bidding program for the state's Medicaid consumables program.

A bill to be voted on this week would mandate a competitive bidding program for all incontinence and medical consumables by December. Providers say such a move would decrease beneficiaries' access to quality health care and raise costs.

ATLANTA — A Medicare oxygen reform plan has the potential to help the industry, but the time to move forward is now, the former chairman of the American Association for Homecare said last week.

"At the end of the day, I think it is going to be very good for the industry. But we need to move forward and find some champions on Capitol Hill," said Tom Ryan, president and CEO of Homecare Concepts in Farmingdale, N.Y., and immediate past chairman of AAHomecare.

WASHINGTON — Last week at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Medicare and Medicaid fraud, AAHomecare submitted a statement for the record outlining its 13-point plan to stop fraud.

But during the Wednesday hearing, an association update said, the DMEPOS competitive bidding program "was discussed as if it were an anti-fraud tool and a panacea for Medicare reform."

WASHINGTON — While only 2 percent of Medicare beneficiaries live in South Florida, the area accounted for 17 percent of Medicare's total spending for inhalation drugs in 2007, according to an HHS Office of Inspector General report.

ELYRIA, Ohio — Invacare Corp. reported Thursday that first-quarter earnings were up compared with a year ago despite a decline in sales.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Last week Lincare Holdings reported net revenues for the quarter ended March 31 of $371.7 million, down 10.5 percent from $415.4 million for the first quarter of 2008.

Net income for the quarter was $26 million, or 36 cents a share, compared to net income of $58.2 million, or 76 cents a share, a year earlier.

LUBBOCK, Texas; BELLEVILLE, Ill. — The MED Group and The ROHO Group have partnered on a service that will let clinicians prescribe ROHO's therapeutic support surfaces and cushions for their patients with orders to be filled through MED's national HME provider network.

ATLANTA — Just when you thought you had all the newest rules and regulations under control, it's time to make sure you're ready for the FTC's "Red Flags Rule" on identity theft.

President Obama said Thursday the government will create a national electronic medical records system for the military that can be a model for reform of the country's health care administration. The president has emphasized EMRs as part of his health care reform plan. Set up by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, an electronic record would follow military personnel "from the day they first enlist to the day that they are laid to rest," Obama said.