Mada International Ltd. has named Rafael Bassi international sales manager, and he will focus on the company’s growth in Latin America. He is a native of Colombia with more than 10 years of international sales experience. Mada manufactures and distributes hundreds of medical, dental, podiatric and veterinary products and caters to home health and institutional markets.
HomeCare News
The Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial on Feb. 6 sharply criticizing Medicare’s Competitive Bidding Program. The editorial referred to the program as a “scheme” that provides cover for Medicare officials to set arbitrary, below-cost prices on HME products.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week reduced its estimate of Medicare spending over the next 10 years by $69 billion. The "Budget and Economic Outlook" report said the reduction was due to updated data on actual spending for 2011 and changes in use of services.
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores recently sent a letter to Sen. Max Baucus opposing any effort by the House-Senate Conference Committee working on the so-called “doc fix” bill to include more diabetic testing supplies under Medicare’s Competitive Bidding Program.
Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter last week to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius complaining about the Obama Administration referring to preventive services mandated by health care reform as “free” to people using them. The senators wrote that they support preventive care, but pointed out that calling them “free” is misleading.
A Kaiser Family Foundation report released last week on Medicaid found that most states are on track with budget and enrollment trends for fiscal year 2012, and they do not anticipate the need for significant mid-year cuts.
Doctors often understate the seriousness of illnesses, and many withhold information from patients, according to a survey published last week by Health Affairs.
The survey was conducted in 2009 and included 1,891 practicing doctors nationwide. More than half of respondents indicated that they sometimes provided patients with an overly optimistic view of possible outcomes for illnesses.
Lincare of Clearwater, Fla., one of the nation’s largest providers of respiratory therapy and other homecare services, announced last week a 3 percent decrease in net income for the last quarter of 2011.
Net income totaled $44.6 million for the fourth quarter 2011, compared to $46.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Net income for the year also was down, totaling $177.3 million in 2011, a 2.3 percent decrease from the $181.6 million in 2010.
The American Association for Homecare last week urged congressional negotiators to include the Market Pricing Program (MPP) in “doc fix” legislation.
In letters to each member of the House-Senate conference committee working on the legislation, AAHomecare President Tyler Wilson called for the measure to replace competitive bidding.
The U-Step walker is a niche HME product with an exceptionally good reputation among neurologists and their patients. It is kind of a super rollator, and undeniably provides the stability, control and mobility needed by many people with severe neurological conditions like advanced Parkinson’s disease.
The American Association for Homecare is hosting its annual Washington Legislative Conference Feb. 15 and 16, and participants will be visiting Capitol Hill to push for replacement of competitive bidding.
For those not attending, there is an alternative. The National Association of Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers (NAIMES) is encouraging HME advocates join in a Virtual Capitol Hill Conference by calling representatives and senators on Thursday, Feb. 16.
Registration closes Thursday for Round 2 of competitive bidding, and there is still confusion about whether HME providers are in areas affected by the program, the Accredited Medical Equipment Providers of America (AMEPA) reported this morning.
The association cited the case of Jeff Ross of Kettig Medical in Taylorsville, Ky., who did not think he was in a Round 2 area until a bid consultant recently contacted him, and he double-checked.
The American Medical Association sent a letter to Congress last week urging lawmakers to stop the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's required implementation of the ICD-10 code set. The letter called on stakeholders to find a replacement for ICD-9. The AMA said implementation of ICD-10 would require doctors and office staff to contend with 68,000 codes; they now work with 13,000 codes.
DME MAC Jurisdiction A announced last week the addition of a new Test Your Knowledge quiz on oxygen. After completing the quiz, users will be directed to correct answers along with a short description of where they can locate more information. The quiz can be found on the DME MAC A website.
People for Quality Care, along with the Pennsylvania Association of Medical Suppliers, are hosting a Town Hall Teleconference on Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 3 p.m. ET., on problems caused by Medicare’s Competitive Bidding Program. Leading the meeting will be People for Quality Care representatives and local medical professionals who understand the impacts of the program. There will also be an opportunity to have questions answered.
An analysis released by the Government Accountability Office last week found that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services overpaid Medicare Advantage plans between $1.2 and $3.1 billion in 2010. At issue is the formula for calculating monthly capitation rates, which is based upon diagnostic sampling. The GAO report found that Medicare Advantage plans were reporting greater levels of disease severity than what was being reported by fee-for-service beneficiaries.
The National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) last week announced creation of a new NAHC affiliate specifically focused on Medicaid home care and hospice issues. Medicaid home care and hospice programs are several times larger than comparable Medicare programs, NAHC reported. Bill Dombi, NAHC’s vice president for law, will manage the new affiliate, the National Council for Medicaid Home Care, until a permanent director is found.
Patients can safely begin intravenous (IV) parenteral nutrition at home when their care is carefully managed with the support of registered dietitians, a new Walgreens Infusion Services study shows. The study was presented at the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.) Clinical Nutrition Week meeting last week in Orlando, Fla.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a letter reminding doctors to maintain documentation needed to ensure payments for DME products.
A survey of baby boomers indicates that many of them are looking for retirement locations where taxes and housing costs are low, the climate is good and quality health care is readily available.
The survey was sponsored by the Consumer Federation of the Southeast and conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.Its findings include: