A bill introduced into the U.S. Senate this afternoon contains language for a one-year delay to Medicare’s plans to apply competitive bidding-derived pricing to accessories used on complex rehab wheelchairs.
The Patient Access & Medicare Protection Act was described by NCART Executive Director Don Clayback as “limited to resolutions of several non-controversial Medicare issues,” and Clayback added the bill is being expedited through the Senate via a “hotline” process.
“What this means,” Clayback said in a Dec. 17 bulletin to stakeholders, “is that once the bill is introduced and distributed, each senator has 24 hours to object to it. If there are no objections within that 24-hour period, the bill is deemed as passed in the Senate and will be forwarded to the House for their voting.”
The bill represents the last hope for stopping implementation of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funding cuts this year, following the release of an omnibus spending bill earlier in the week that did not contain the CRT legislation the industry had been hoping for.
“We’re still fighting the battle here,” Clayback told Mobility Management. “We still have another day to make something happen. This bill is the result of our supporters trying to put something together, a package of limited legislation that’s Medicare related and that appears to have bipartisan support.”
Industry stakeholders are being urged by NCART as well as the American Association for Homecare to phone their Senators immediately to urge them to support the new bill. The bill was introduced by Sen. Rob Portman (R‐Ohio), Sen. Bob Casey (D‐Pa.), Sen. Richard Burr (R‐N.C.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D‐N.Y.), Sen. Roy Blunt (R‐Mo.), and Sen. Michael Bennet (D‐Colo.).
Click HERE for a list of phone number for Senate offices.
