Committee Sets Webinars on Separate Rehab Benefit

WASHINGTON — With an industry steering committee and
commission of a study on how best to go about it, advocates are
moving ahead on exploration and development of a separate Medicare
benefit for complex rehab.

Chaired by Don Clayback, executive director of the National Coalition
for Assistive and Rehab Technology, the committee includes:

• Gary Gilberti, president of Chesapeake Rehab Equipment in
  Baltimore, and Rita Hostak, vice president of government affairs at
  Sunrise Medical, Longmont, Colo., representing NCART;
• Tim Pederson, CEO of WestMed Rehab, Rapid City, S.D., and chair
  of AAHomeCare’s Complex Rehab and Mobility Council (CRMC), and Walt
  Gorski, vice president, representing the American Association for
  Homecare;
• Simon Margolis, executive director, representing the National
  Registry of Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers (NRRTS);
• Elizabeth Cole, director of clinical rehab services at the VGM
  Group in Waterloo, Iowa, representing the Rehabilitation
  Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America
  (RESNA); and
• Laura Cohen, PT, PhD, ATP, a research scientist at the Shepherd
  Center in Atlanta, who will serve as a clinical advisor.

The steering committee, which Clayback noted wants as much input
from as broad a spectrum of rehab stakeholders as possible, will
provide information on its progress and ask for feedback through
two upcoming Webinars called “Understanding the Separate Complex
Rehab Benefit Initiative Under Medicare.” The first is scheduled
for 3 p.m. ET Wednesday (Sept. 30) and the second for 5 p.m. ET on
Thursday, Oct. 8.

Attendance is open and there is no charge. Advance registration
is required, however, at www2.gotomeeting.com/register/369004210 for the
Wednesday event or at www2.gotomeeting.com/register/788975666 for the Oct. 8
session.

The dialog will continue at Medtrade, which takes place Oct. 12-15 at the
Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

In an NCART update session on Wednesday, Oct. 14, Clayback will
detail the results of a study commissioned from Washington,
D.C.-based consulting firm Avalere Health on whether a regulatory
or legislative route — or a combination of the two —
would work best in pushing the separate benefit proposal
forward.

A rehab and assistive technology panel presentation at the
annual trade show also will include discussion of the separate
benefit. Scheduled at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, panelists will
include Clayback, Pederson, Margolis and Julie Piriano, director of
rehab industry affairs for Pride Mobility’s Quantum Rehab,
representing RESNA.

That will be followed Oct. 29 with an all-day “consensus
conference” for all stakeholders to be held in St. Louis, Mo.
Information on that event will be forthcoming shortly, Clayback
said.

Meanwhile, the industry also continues efforts to thwart
elimination of the first-month purchase option for power
wheelchairs, currently part of health care reform bills in both the
House and the Senate. In a bit of good news on that front, Pride’s
Seth Johnson, vice president of government affairs, said the Senate
Finance Committee’s Chairman’s Mark initially included an
implementation date of 2010 for elimination of the option.

“However, on the first day of the Senate Finance Committee’s
consideration of the bill,” Johnson said, “Chairman [Max Baucus,
D-Mont.] offered a series of amendments that were accepted, one of
which changed the implementation date of the purchase option
provision to 2011.

“Clearly this is a positive development as it delays
implementation another year and provides some additional time to
secure a viable alternative that preserves the beneficiary purchase
option and access to physician-prescribed power wheelchairs,” he
said.

Some congressional minds may also be changing on the industry’s
attempt to restore the 9.5 percent cut for complex rehab, an issue
Clayback said is gaining particular notice.

“We’re on the verge of having some congressmen signing a letter
supporting that,” he said Friday.