WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 12, 2017)—Representatives Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and John Larson (D-Conn) introduced legislation on Monday to exempt accessories for manual CRT wheelchairs from bidding-derived pricing with a strong, bipartisan roster of 42 original co-sponsors (23 Democrats, 19 Republicans). HR 3730 would complement earlier CMS action exempting accessories for group 3 power wheelchairs from bidding-derived pricing.

NEW YORK (September 12, 2017)—City Health Works and Mount Sinai St. Luke’s (MSSL) are collaborating on a one-year pilot, launched in mid-July, to reduce hospital readmissions for patients with congestive heart failure.

ATLANTA (September 12, 2017)—Managing compliance for sleep apnea patients and increasing resupply revenue just got easier for home medical equipment (HME) providers, as Brightree today announced automated resupply enrollment for patients managed by both Brightree and AirView by ResMed.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 11, 2017)—With policy changes on the horizon that could significantly harm Medicare’s home health benefit through significant payment cuts, nearly 150 representatives from home health, hospice and homecare agencies across the country gathered in Washington today to ask lawmakers to support efforts to protect the approximately 3.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who depend on home health.

RALEIGH, N.C. (September 11, 2017)—Domtar Personal Care has launched its most advanced product line to date. The Attends Extended Wear Brief and Extended Wear Pad have been developed with Dry-Lock Containment Core, a new and proprietary EAM technology. This technology allows Domtar Personal Care to launch a product that leads our product portfolio in Dryness and absorbent Capacity with a retentive capacity of 45 ounces and overall capacity of 100+ ounces.

CMS Expects Few Hospitals to Participate in Readmissions Experiment
Few providers are expected to volunteer for an experiment to help track unplanned readmissions and their causes, even though the pilot is a precursor for a mandatory change in how hospitals are penalized. (Virgil Dickson/Modern Healthcare)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 7, 2017)—CMS has just released guidance covering replacements for lost/damaged DMEPOS items in the wake of a declared emergency.

—Via AAHomecare, WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 7, 2017)—CMS and AAHomcare are both dedicated to instituting policies that protect beneficiary and supplier communities that have been affected by Hurricane Harvey. Last week, AAHomecare and several members of the Regulatory Council met with CMS regarding emergency and disaster related policies and procedures.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 7, 2017)—Last Friday, AAHomecare chairman Steve Ackerman joined Tom Ryan, Jay Witter and Kim Brummett to present updated findings from our Patient Access Survey to CMS officials. Staff from our survey partner Dobson DaVanzo and counsel Foley & Hoag were also in attendance.