During today’s Texas Alliance of Home Care Services (TAHC) phone-a-thon – taking place from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Central time – the organization is urging DME suppliers, their referral sources and patients to call members of Congress and urge support of H.R. 3790.
The bill would put an end to Medicare’s national competitive bidding program while maintaining the cost savings to Medicare.
TAHC is urging suppliers to call even if they don’t reside in a competitive bidding area.
To facilitate the calls, TAHC has also suggested various scripts for physicians, patients and suppliers to use to ensure the major talking points are covered.
In one example – the supplier script – TAHC suggests the caller supply the following information:
“I am a Medicare DME provider, and I am calling to ask the Congressman to co-sponsor H.R. 3790, a budget-neutral repeal of DMEPOS bidding. It will achieve the same savings without needlessly closing 90 percent of the local providers and limiting patients’ access to care.
“My business is ___ years old and accredited. I service ___ Medicare patients in Texas. I have ___ employees who want to keep working. (If they do, explain how your employees have benefits)
“I want my patients to continue to receive:
— Service from my reliable and experienced company
— The brand products that their doctor prescribe
— Timely services that my local company delivers.”
TAHC also suggests that in discussions about competitive bidding, the following points be raised:
— Last year, Congress delayed a flawed government bidding program for Medicare home medical equipment providers. The program was in place for two weeks, but Congress stopped it as a community safety measure for the following reasons:
— 90 percent of the local companies were removed from the current Medicare program.
— Bid winners were made up of unlicensed, inexperienced and out-of-area companies.
— Bid winners refused to provide equipment and new technologies that were prescribed.
— Bid winners refused to make same-day deliveries and service calls.
TAHC is asking suppliers to report which members of Congress they contacted and what their responses were by e-mailing info@TAHCS.org. For more information on TAHC, go to www.tahc.org.
