Bright Ideas

• By Laurie Watanabe
• Jan 01, 2008

In informal discussions around the office, my art director and I have started referring to 2008 as “The Year We Get Smart.” Yes, there’s obviously some irreverence in our nickname. But at the same time, we’re serious about getting smart(er). We’ve made some changes to Mobility Management for 2008, and we hope they’ll make MM a wiser, more useful resource for you and your business.

For instance, this month we debut two new expert-written columns: Clinically Speaking and Funding Essentials. Clinically Speaking is penned by today’s leading seating & mobility clinicians, and they’ve been given free rein to talk about whatever they think needs to be said. I’ve gotten a sneak peek at their topics, and I’m blown away — columnists will be discussing everything from creating successful mobility evaluations to working with clients with neurological disorders.

Our premiere column features a Q&A with Dr. Mark Schmeler, the new director of continuing education at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology. As such, Mark will have a tremendous impact on the International Seating Symposium, one of the critical events in rehab. We asked what his priorities will be, along with his opinions on assistive technology topics such as the ATP/ATS requirement put in place by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (and then partly rescinded right before press time).

Meanwhile, our new Funding Essentials column, written by a core of industry experts, will explain reimbursement and policy changes so you can take timely action to protect and grow your business. During the year, we’ll talk in depth about how competitive bidding could affect various product categories, how codes and coverage criteria are created, and where allowables come from. We kick off Funding Essentials with a column by The Orion Group’s Claudia Amortegui, who offers a reimbursement preview of the new year. New manual wheelchair codes, anyone?

All year long, you’ll also be able to keep up with legislative and CMS policy changes via our CMS Update column in our MMBeat news section, as well as in Funding Essentials. We aim to arm you with solutions this year — the resources and information you need to succeed in all areas of your mobility/rehab business, whether that’s increasing your clinical knowledge, learning newcodes and coverage criteria, making your operations more efficient or investigating expansion opportunities.

That’s why we’re starting our editorial year with Great Solutions, a keep-it-on-your-desk product pictorial that offers innovations and technology to answer the mobility and rehab needs of your customers and clients. We asked participating manufacturers to tell us how their products or services help, and whom they help. Some companies responded by talking about medical conditions and diagnoses. Some talked about client demographics: seniors, bariatric patients, kids, adolescents. And some talked about how their products and services are made to help you — by reducing your technicians’ service time, by making sure you have documentation and client information available when you need it, by shortening the time you’ll need to spend training your own staff or your customers. Here’s to great ideas and a better year.

This article originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Mobility Management.