The American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) is urging small home medical equipment (HME) businesses to make their voices heard as critical conversations continue on the future of Medicare’s competitive bidding program.
“In recent meetings, we’ve seen that discussion of the potential impacts on small businesses are of particular interest to members of the administration and are also well-received on Capitol Hill,” the association said in an Oct. 21 bulletin. “Over the next two weeks, we encourage HME companies of all sizes to reach out to their members of Congress and ask that they weigh in with CMS on the bidding program.”
Additional feedback from HME providers “will help amplify points we are making in our direct meetings with the administration and continue to create awareness and urgency on the need to pause implementation of the DME [durable medical equipment] component of the proposed rule.”
AAHomecare recommended that stakeholders reach out to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to explain that competitive bidding as described in the home health proposed rule would cause “irreversible harm to suppliers and Medicare beneficiary access.”
The association added that small businesses can add that the proposed rule “will create especially severe financial and operational strain for small suppliers,” and that CME should delay the proposed rule’s implementation “to conduct meaningful analysis of the rule’s impact on small DMEPOS suppliers.”
AAHomecare encouraged all providers to describe how the proposed rule will impact their businesses and patients if the provisions are finalized as is.
Find a pre-written competitive bidding letter on the association’s website.
