MURRYSVILLE, Pa.--Respironics' board of directors has endorsed a $5.1-billion bid by Royal Philips Electronics to acquire the sleep and respiratory equipment maker.
Netherlands-based Philips has offered $66 per share for Respironics, a more-than 20 percent increase above the company's recent closing prices. The deal is expected to close some time in the first quarter of 2008, pending approval from shareholders and regulators.
ATLANTA--After more than two years in HME's private sector, Dr. Robert Hoover will reassume his role as a Cigna Government Services medical director when he takes over those duties for Jurisdiction C on Jan. 14.
BALTIMORE--Late Friday, the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee recommended changes to CMS' national coverage determination on coverage of continuous positive airway pressure therapy for obstructive sleep apnea. The proposed decision memorandum addressed several issues, including the controversial topic of home-based testing for OSA--and it got the go.
BALTIMORE--The HME industry will receive some long-awaited answers Dec. 19 when CMS hosts a Special Open Door Forum to announce accreditation deadlines.
During the conference call, scheduled from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST Dec.19, the agency said it will announce:
WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, sent a letter to the U.S. Small Business Administration Wednesday to use its muscle with CMS and intervene to delay competitive bidding.
WASHINGTON--Unable to settle on a Medicare package last week, the House of Representatives threw up its hands, tossing the hot potato to the Senate. The move could ultimately benefit HME providers, some Washington insiders said.
COLUMBIA, S.C.--On Friday, TriCenturion released the first-quarter results of its prepayment review of K0823 power wheelchairs and said the review will continue.
In September, the Jurisdiction A/B DME Program Safeguard Contractor said a prepayment probe showed sky-high denial rates of 87.51 percent for Jurisdiction A and 93.36 percent for Jurisdiction B. (See HomeCare Monday, Sept. 24.)
MIAMI--Just weeks after scathing reports on the home medical equipment industry by National Public Radio and the New York Times, HME took another body blow last week, this time delivered in a two-part series that aired on NBC.
TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.--On the heels of Medicare's supplier fraud demonstration in South Florida's Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties, HME companies in the state's Tampa-St. Petersburg area are coming under the Medicaid microscope.
ARLINGTON, Va.--After a deadly storm that coated much of the Plains region in ice last week, the American Association for Homecare, the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services and VGM Group praised the efforts of HME providers to care for their patients.
At the height of the storm, more than a million customers in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were without power, according to news reports, and more than 280,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark as of Friday.
ATLANTA--In an ironic twist of fate, the home medical equipment industry is finally getting the national recognition it has yearned for--but not the kind it envisioned.
BALTIMORE--CMS' DME Program Safeguard Contractors have eliminated a requirement for a certified Assistive Technology Practitioner (ATP)--a credential bestowed by the Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America--to evaluate beneficiaries receiving certain power wheelchairs.
MELBOURNE, Fla.--When CMS chooses the next 70 MSAs for competitive bidding, the agency could be excluding $1 billion in annual Medicare DME expenditures from the program, according to industry consultant Wallace Weeks of Weeks Group.
WASHINGTON--According to Sharon Hildebrandt, executive director of the National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology, there was some positive response from the organization's Washington call-in last week.
BALTIMORE--CMS has begun its third annual provider satisfaction survey of Medicare fee-for-service contractors, who process and pay more than $280 billion in Medicare claims each year.
WASHINGTON--After a scathing article in the New York Times blasting what reporter Charles Duhigg described as Medicare overpayments for home oxygen, the American Association for Homecare issued a statement late Friday explaining HME companies' services in providing the therapy and asking for "a genuine debate" about appropriate payment for oxygen.
BALTIMORE--In yet another glitch with the fledgling Internet registry of National Provider Identification numbers and other health care provider data, CMS cautioned last week that the Social Security numbers of some providers could be disclosed to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.
BALTIMORE--While there were no big explanations at CMS' Open Door Forum last week, HME stakeholders did glean a few nuggets of information on the agency's national competitive bidding project and its ongoing fraud demonstration.
ATLANTA--As the industry awaits CMS' decision on coverage of CPAP therapy based on home testing, DeVilbiss Healthcare's Robert D. Hoover, Jr., MD, MPH, FACP, is optimistic about the outcome. "I believe CMS probably will provide some level of coverage for home studies," said Hoover, chief medical officer for the Somerset, Pa.-based manufacturer.
CINCINNATI--Ohio company Active Solutions of Worthington conspired to defraud Medicare and Medicaid through a "bait-and-switch" scheme that selectively targeted people who wanted portable scooters, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the indictment accused the company of deceptively billing the government programs for power wheelchair claims totaling $25.9 million from 2002 through 2005.
