Rep. Price Takes Lead on MPP in House
Georgia lawmaker will help shape, launch legislation to advance competitive bidding repeal/replace program.
- By David Kopf
- Aug 30, 2012
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga) will take the lead on drafting and launching legislation to advance the HME industry’s Market Pricing Program (MPP) alternative to competitive bidding in the House of Representatives.
Price agreed to tale the lead on the bill after extensive discussion with the American Association for Homecare and the Georgia Association of Medical Equipment Services (GAMES).
The MPP offers an alternative to CMS’s current bid program by still providing an auction structure, but fixes many of the critical shortcomings in the current bidding program such as imposition of the median prices, non-binding bids, and population-based auction areas that fail to reflect actual markets.
To download a PDF that contains an issue paper and bill summary from the American Association visit this link:
http://www.aahomecare.org/associations/3208/files/MPP_IssuePaperBillSummary.pdf
The association said Price expects to introduce the MPP proposal after it undergoes the official drafting process of being put into House legislative or bill language.
With the Congressman poised to sponsor the legislation, the next step for the homecare community is to contact House Republicans and Democrats and urge them to be original co-sponsors. AAHomecare alerted its members today about the importance of enlisting original cosponsors for this critical bill.
AAHomecare specially thanks Todd Tyson, president of Hi-Tech Healthcare, Inc., Norcross, Ga., who is a GAMES member and an Executive Committee member of CSI:HME and a member of NAIMES, as well as the other activists at GAMES who helped generate the interest and support within Congress for legislation to address competitive bidding.
About the Author
David Kopf is the Editor of HME Business.