Mobility Management Podcast: NCART on MWC Victory & CRT Awareness Week

• By Laurie Watanabe
• Sep 01, 2021

The newest Mobility Management podcast gives listeners the chance to celebrate the recent funding victory for accessories used on Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) manual wheelchairs… while also gearing up for National CRT Awareness Week.

NCART Executive Director Don Clayback and Associate Director Mickae Lee once again joined Mobility Management Editor Laurie Watanabe to provide a third-quarter update on current CRT issues.

Among the topics of conversation: The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announcement that Medicare would no longer use competitive bidding-derived pricing to set reimbursement rates for accessories used on CRT manual wheelchairs.

“It really was a great win for access,” Clayback said in the podcast. “This has long been an advocacy initiative for us.

“Persistence does pay off, and if we stay on task, we’ve got a great message, and we’re educating more and more policy makers. And hopefully that’s going to make these access battles fewer and fewer.”

Lee spoke on the upcoming National CRT Awareness Week — scheduled for Sept. 20 — and how all CRT stakeholders can participate.

“We encourage everyone to find creative ways to deliver the message of what CRT is, who uses it, how it’s provided, and why access is so critically important,” she explained.

This year’s Awareness Week and Congressional Fly-In are taking place virtually due to the pandemic, but Lee still expressed high hopes for participation.

“It’s going to be different,” she said, “but it’s going to be great.”