VGM ‘Shut Down’ Racks Up Calls for H.R. 3790

WATERLOO, Iowa — Via emails, phone calls and a four-hour
Web cast, the VGM Group staged a “Shut Down the Switchboard” effort
Wednesday (Dec. 2), encouraging its members and others to contact
their legislators and urge them to sign on to H.R. 3790 to repeal
competitive bidding.

In a post about the Washington call-in on its Web site, the HME
member services group wrote:

“Should our industry fail to achieve greater than 50 percent
support for H.R. 3790, NCB will move forward. Providers in and
around the nine Round 1 competitive bidding areas are currently
going through the bidding process and stand to learn their fate by
next summer, with the likelihood that approximately 90 percent of
local bidding entities will not be offered contracts and contracted
suppliers will face cuts of greater than 30 percent below the 2008
allowables.

“Round 2 bidding entities, likely including 91 additional
bidding areas, are to bid in 2011 and learn their fate as Medicare
providers shortly thereafter. Providers in non-competitively bid
areas also face the inevitable in that bid rates will ultimately be
spread to non-bid areas. This program affects each and every
provider, beneficiary and association, and we need to stop it
NOW.”

“Our intent is to create an awareness … to work on the
elimination of competitive bidding,” said Web cast moderator John
Gallagher, VGM vice president of government relations. “That is the
biggest threat to our industry.” It is important that legislators
know the huge number of companies that will close and the jobs that
will be lost if CMS’ competitive bidding program goes through, he
said.

He and Mark Higley, VGM’s vice president of development, noted
numerous sobering statistics, among them:

• For the average HME provider, Medicare is the largest payer,
  making up 40 percent or more of the company’s total revenue;

• A new round of competitive bidding could result in an average
  across-the-board cut for included DMEPOS products of 30 percent,
  not including the 9.5 percent the industry has already absorbed to
  pay for the delay of competitive bidding;

• In North Dakota, under the first Round 1 bid, only six providers
  would have been left to service the state.

The two recounted the stats in hopes of gaining the support of
providers who, if they are not included in the rebid of Round 1,
are not reacting. That’s a mistake, Gallagher said, noting that if
competitive bidding isn’t eliminated, it is likely to be expanded
much more rapidly than currently planned. And “crazy bids” could
compromise any HME provider, he stressed.

“It’s going to be those third-party payers and Medicare that
follow those crazy bids,” he warned. “You in middle America are
going to have to live with those lower rates.”

Gallagher also entertained questions and comments from viewers,
several of whom noted they were distributing information from the
Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, an independent watchdog
organization, about the dangers of the competitive bidding program
to their beneficiaries. (For more, see Watchdog
Group Challenges CMS on Competitive Bidding, July 20.)

“It’s been very beneficial for us,” said one provider from
Nevada, who noted the state’s HME providers have banded together to
fight competitive bidding. “We’re pretty strong, we’re very
competitive, but with this issue, we’ve all gotten together,” he
said.

In fact, he added, Nevada providers will meet next week to come
up with a strategy to address the media, “which has been very
abrasive toward us.” In recent weeks, numerous stories have
surfaced charging that the industry is corrupt; the Nevada group
wants to dispel such notions within the media.

Throughout the event, Gallagher kept tabs on the number of calls
going into the U.S. Capitol switchboard from HME providers and even
beneficiaries. By the end of the day, 3,427 calls had been logged
on the VGM Web site from the HME sector.

But Gallagher stressed that just making the calls is not the end
of the effort.

“Don’t forget that follow-up,” he urged, noting that VGM offers
three follow-up letters on its Web site that stakeholders can use
to reconnect with their legislators and remind them to support H.R.
3790.

From legislators, he has learned that “Congress reacts, and they
react to constituents,” Gallagher said. “And you’re a
constituent.”

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