Texas HME Sets Sights on NCB
Newspaper column from San Antonio provider educates Lone Star readers on dangers of bid program.
- By David Kopf
- Jun 13, 2012
San Antonio Express-News readers know a little bit more about the dangers posed by national competitive bidding, thanks to Kathleen Weir Vale, CEO of Hope Medical (San Antonio, Tex.), who recently penned a guest editorial in the paper, one of the largest newspapers in the Lone Star state.
The column explains Vale’s business, why HME is important to patients, and why it is important to taxpayers in that it saves them so much on hospital costs that would otherwise be incurred by the Medicare program. She explains how Medicare, needing to save money, has already cut reimbursement for benefits such as oxygen by considerable amounts, regardless of competitive bidding. Then Vale explains why NCB is such a faulty and dangerous program.
“For months, I have been working on preparing my company's bid for Round Two of Medicare's badly designed 'competitive' bidding program, which is now underway in the San Antonio metropolitan area,” Vale wrote in the column. “Hundreds of economists have warned Congress that, as currently designed, this bidding system will fail to live up to its promises.
“In fact, it will decimate our sector, dramatically reduce Medicare beneficiaries' access to care, and cost at least 100,000 jobs,” she continued. “Many small businesses have already closed as a result of Round 1 of the bidding program in nine other areas around the U.S. A vast expansion of the program will be devastating.”
The full column can be read at http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Health-cuts-could-prove-disastrous-3620189.php
About the Author
David Kopf is the Editor of HME Business.