WASHINGTON — More than 250 HME providers and other advocates called on members of Congress to cosponsor H.R. 1041 during the American Association for Homecare's Legislative Conference last week, and their efforts paid off. As of Friday, 20 representatives from both sides of the aisle had signed on to the bill.
Introduced March 11 by Reps. Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., and Jason Altmire, D-Pa., the Fairness in Medicare Bidding Act calls for an immediate repeal of DMEPOS competitive bidding. To "pay for" the $20 billion the government expects in savings from the program over 10 years, the bill taps discretionary funds that Congress had earmarked for other projects but never actually used. (For more, see Thompson, Altmire Start the Ball Rolling for Competitive Bidding Repeal.)
H.R. 3790, a similar repeal bill, picked up 259 cosponsors in the House last year. Speaking to the AAHomecare audience March 16, Thomson said, "I'm hopeful the new bill will gain just as much or more than that.
"All indicators are we're on the track," said Thompson, a former recreational therapist and EMT. "Most bills like this rarely pass in the first cycle," he added, "but I think the dynamics are pretty good for us right now."
Providers, too, said they were confident the new repeal bill could make headway in the House.
"I think we can get 100 cosponsors in the first month," predicted Rob Brant of City Medical Services in Miami. The key, he said, is getting those members who signed on to last year's bill to do so again, and to gain support from as many of the 87 new House freshmen as possible. Ten of those are in Florida, and providers from the state held meetings with all of them during the AAHomecare lobbying event March 16-17.
"It's definitely worth the effort," said Mike Hamilton, executive director of the Alabama Durable Medical Equipment Association. "It sometimes takes years to make things happen up here, and you have to be persistent. But I really believe we've got the best opportunity we've ever had to get competitive bidding repealed at no cost to the industry.
"After a few more months of the current program running," Hamilton continued, "it will be so obvious to anyone that it isn't working that I think anybody would vote to repeal it."
Coastal Med Tech's Catherine Hamilton (no relation) agreed. "I think [the bill] has potentially a greater chance than it did a year ago to go somewhere," said Hamilton, who traveled from her home base in Hancock, Maine, to take part in the Capitol Hill lobbying effort. "While competitive bidding doesn't directly affect us right now in Maine, it's certainly going to have that trickle-down effect, and that's something that we just can't tolerate in the industry."
When meeting with legislators or their aides face-to-face, Hamilton said, "You can't help but feel you'll have a positive effect."
Providers were cautiously optimistic that positive energy might extend to the Senate. H.R. 3790 never picked up a companion bill in that chamber, but there's hope for H.R. 1041 in Congress' new session with several senators targeted as champions of the proposed legislation.
That's the challenge this time around, said David Petsch of Petsch Respiratory in Martinez, Ga. "We'll obviously get support for 1041 but we're going to need to find an equal track on the Senate side. We have the opportunities … and we've got an outside chance to get something going," he said.
While he and others acknowledged that coming up with a Senate bill could be a heavy lift, Petsch said it's one the industry has to shoulder.
"I'm convinced that all of our energy needs to be on repeal," Petsch said of competitive bidding. "Reforming this program isn't going to work."
Stuart Pace of Med-South in Homewood, Ala., said he feels the same way but wishes more providers would share the load. "We had 250 at the conference," he said, "but there should have been 2,500."
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