WASHINGTON--Hoping to put a face on complex rehab and drum up support for a bill that would exempt it from competitive bidding, the National Coalition for Assistive Rehab Technology will hold a Capitol Hill press conference next week featuring consumers who use the equipment.

The event falls on Sept. 25, the same day the bid window closes for the initial round of CMS' DMEPOS competitive bidding program. The press conference will be held at 11 a.m. in the Rayburn Health Building.

"The goal is to raise the visibility of H.R. 2231," said Sharon Hildebrandt, executive director of NCART, referring to the Medicare Access to Complex Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Act of 2007.

Introduced in May by Reps. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Ron Lewis, R. Ky., the bill seeks to carve out complex rehab equipment from the competitive bidding program, which will be implemented in July 2008.

Industry stakeholders have challenged the inclusion of complex rehab in the project, saying that the equipment is too customized to be considered a commodity. In its position paper on the bill, NCART also notes: "Competitive bidding fails to allow for the level of services and significant costs associated with the delivery of complex rehab technology to people with disabilities." The paper also points out that "significant savings will not be achieved by including complex rehab technology in competitive bidding."

So far, the carve-out bill has 18 cosponsors.

"The legislation needs a vehicle to be attached to," Hildebrandt said. "It's very unclear what's going to happen with any Medicare bill this year. We would hope that if one gets put together, [our bill] could be included in that."

Hildebrandt said she and other stakeholders used Congress' annual summer recess to stump for the bill. "We did a lot of visits over the August recess," she said. "We hope that will bear some fruit pretty soon."

The visits to legislators have largely been educational, she said, because few of them are familiar with complex rehab.

The press conference itself will be educational in nature. Hildebrandt said that in addition to comments from Reps. Lewis and Allen, two consumers who use the equipment "will speak on how complex rehab has helped them."

That should help put a face on the issues, she said. "It's the consumers of complex rehab that are going to be hurt by [including complex rehab in competitive bidding]."

In addition to the press conference, NCART continues to encourage provider action to get H.R. 2231 passed. It has joined with several other stakeholder organizations to create a Web site, www.ComplexRehab.org, where visitors can read background and text of the bill and access tools for supporting its passage. Several documents are available on the site that can be used as guides in communicating with referral sources and clients, as well as for urging members of Congress to pass the bill.

"Successful passage will ensure that people with complex disabilities receive the products and services they need," the site says. "Congress needs to understand what this means, and it is critical they hear directly from you."