On The Hill: 14 Senators Urge Medicare To Delay Medical Equipment Deadline

A bipartisan group of 14 senators have written to ask the Medicare program to extend the deadline for the competitive acquisition program for durable medical equipment until quality and patient access issues are resolved, according to a home health trade group.

In a July 13 letter to Leslie Norwalk, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the 14 senators requested that the agency take specific steps to ensure that implementation of the bidding program does not harm quality or beneficiary access to homecare. The bidding program is required by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.

The letter states, in part, "Access to quality DME and related services can often mean the difference between a patient being able to remain in their own home or being forced into a nursing home or hospital. While Congress instructed CMS to begin competitive bidding in 2007, we strongly believe that due to its direct impact on daily patient care, it must be implemented carefully with significant attention to the effect on patients."

The Senate letter urges CMS to address several issues before implementation of the competitive bidding program. Some of those specific concerns include:

--Questions about how CMS will assess the effectiveness of the competitive bidding program with respect to clinical outcomes for certain patients such as those requiring pressure wound therapy and blood glucose self-monitoring;
--A compressed timeline for implementation of the bidding process that does not provide sufficient time for suppliers to learn about important details and obtain answers to key questions relevant to preparing bids;
--Overly broad, inconsistent, and confusing Medicare codes that raise quality and patient-access issues.

Competitive bidding for certain home medical equipment items and therapies is slated to begin this year in 10 metropolitan areas: Charlotte, NC; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Kansas City, Mo.; Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Riverside, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and San Juan, PR. The program is scheduled to spread to 70 more areas throughout the U.S. in 2009.