CRT Awareness Week Brings Advocacy Opportunities

• By Laurie Watanabe
• Aug 19, 2019

August 19-23 is Awareness Week for the complex rehab technology (CRT) industry, a grassroots opportunity to talk to members of Congress while they’re home for recess.

According to NCART, this year’s Awareness Week is focusing on bills to protect access to CRT manual wheelchair and related components, and to create a separate Medicare benefit category for CRT.

The www.protectmymobility.org Web site, set up by NCART, makes it easy for stakeholders to contact their members of Congress via e-mail or phone in just a couple of minutes.

At the heart of these industry conversations are H.R. 2293 and S. 1223, the House and Senate bills, respectively, to protect consumer access to CRT manual wheelchairs by stopping

Medicare payment cuts and by excluding these wheelchairs from Medicare’s controversial competitive bidding program.

Industry advocates are also discussing H.R. 2048, a bill that “will establish a separate benefit category for CRT within Medicare to allow better access and safeguards through proper segregation and needed improvements in coverage, coding, and supplier standards,” NCART’s Web site said.

The protectmymobility.org site is pre-populated with an e-mail that can be edited by the sender, if desired, before it’s sent.

In an Aug. 19 e-mail to the industry, NCART outlined other suggestions for the week as well. Click HERE to see how you can get involved.