Industry Comes Back Swinging on Mobility Misinformation

ARLINGTON, Va. — In an attempt to put the brakes on
misinformation about power wheelchair pricing, the American
Association for Homecare is partnering with a public relations firm
to get the right word out about mobility issues.

The association, along with its Complex Rehab Mobility Council,
has chosen Mike Frisby and Assoc. of Washington, D.C., to head up
what officials call “an awareness-building process that we need to
pursue for the long term.”

“I think if nothing else, it is symbolic for the industry to
actually fight back, because we’ve been battered by this frontal
assault from the government on what we do to help people,” said Tim
Pederson, chair of the CRMC and CEO of WestMed Rehab, Rapid City,
S.D.

“What we are going to do is come back swinging and put a human
face on it,” Pederson continued. “Basically, we are tired of being
kicked to the curb. It distorts the good work that we do, and we
need to get the real story out there — the human side of it,
the lives that we make a difference to.”

The main catalyst for the new campaign was a report issued last
August by the Office of Inspector General on the acquisition
costs of power wheelchairs. The OIG later acknowledged the
report to be flawed because it did not take into consideration the
cost of services attached to providing PWCs.

“The OIG study was inherently unfair,” Pederson told
HomeCare earlier. “It took a limited sample of claims data
from the first six months of 2007 when the industry was in turmoil.
The timing is unfortunate, unfair and does not reflect
reality.”

Still, the Department of Health and Human Services has persisted
in using the incorrect data to lobby for further reductions in the
power wheelchair benefit, which has already been cut some 37
percent, AAHomecare pointed out in its first “Mobility Matters”
fax, sent to Congress and policymakers March 31.

That has propelled AAHomecare into the PR effort.

“The HME mobility community has seen a huge decline in
reimbursement rates for power wheelchairs and, at the same time, an
enormous spike in documentation and administrative burdens,” said
Michael Reinemer, vice president, communications and policy, for
AAHomecare. “So we want to make sure that the media, Congress and
policymakers get accurate information.

Reinemer said there are three primary goals for the
campaign.

“We began this campaign in order to 1) ramp up greater focus on
the positive aspects of power mobility in terms of cost
effectiveness and promotion of independence for users; 2) do even
more to set the record straight with respect to the
Internet-pricing myth, which benchmarks Medicare reimbursements to
Internet prices, and other misleading information published by the
HHS Office of Inspector General; and 3) advocate for preservation
of the first-month purchase option and other key priorities for the
mobility community,” he said.

The new health reform law calls for elimination of the
first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs, a move that
could harm both power mobility providers who must now wait 13
months for full reimbursement, and beneficiaries who might
encounter quality and accessibility problems, mobility stakeholders
have said.

“We expect that this effort will help open more eyes and
counteract a lot of the bad information out there,” Reinemer
said.

There is a role for home medical equipment providers in all
this, too, he added.

“We hope that HME providers join in and work with their local
media to raise awareness locally, which helps educate members of
Congress about the role of mobility services and products in their
home districts and states,” Reinemer said.

For more information about “Mobility Matters,” see www.aahomecare.org/mobility.