Cure for Red Tape Blues

Rules and regulations often need clarification to prevent confusion — or unnecessary burdens — for the HME community. Fortunately, volunteers on AAHomecare's councils and committees donate generous amounts of their time to analyze and respond to a wide array of thorny regulatory matters.

Over the past year, these volunteers have taken on a long list of challenges:

• Competitive bidding

  Serious concerns were expressed by providers who ran into problems submitting bids for the first round of the competitive bidding program. The Association teamed up with consumer and patient groups in Washington to garner congressional support for an extension in the bidding window.

  Congressional letters asked CMS to answer some of the critical questions from providers before moving forward with the program. The efforts of AAHomecare volunteers, in concert with industry groups, consumer groups and members of Congress, led to a significant extension in the original 60-day bid window in 2007.

  However, the extension did not alleviate all of the concerns. In order to field queries and serve as a mediator for members with CMS, our councils and committees collected questions and concerns from the industry regarding problems with the bidding program and sent them to CMS.

  We hope that raising these questions will help ensure greater transparency and fairness in the bidding system: Will CMS outline how the pivotal bid is established so that the public will have an opportunity to review it? How can additional regulatory initiatives be factored into an established bid rate once the bid has been set? What steps is CMS taking to better educate the competitive bidding implementation contractor staff? What are the roles and responsibilities of the ombudsman?

• Assistive Technology Practitioner (ATP) Requirements

  DME Program Safety Contractor medical directors accepted a request from AAHomecare's Rehab and Assistive Technology Council to revise the power mobility devices local coverage determination.

  In a letter to the Association, the medical directors stated: “The DME PSC medical directors have decided to accept your request to revise the Power Mobility Devices LCD and eliminate the requirement that patients receiving rehab power wheelchairs on or after April 1, 2008, be evaluated by a RESNA-certified Assistive Technology Practitioner.