The American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) is seeking industry help to sign on additional sponsors for the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform Act of 2025 (SOAR).
A March 12 bulletin from AAHomecare said any new cosponsors for S. 1406 and H.R. 2902 would be welcome, but “adding more House Republicans and senators from either party would be especially helpful.” In particular, members of the House Energy & Commerce committee or the Senate Finance committee could be especially impactful cosponsors, the association added.
The SOAR act “uses price discovery established through competitive bidding while right-sizing the rates for liquid oxygen,” the bulletin said. “It also provides targeted policies to strengthen fraud and abuse protection, including a prescriber template to support ePrescribing and enhanced beneficiary protection to stop illegitimate entities from fraudulently billing Medicare.”
Advocates can also use a prewritten letter to send to legislators. AAHomecare urged oxygen suppliers “to edit the letter to reflect your own experiences supporting oxygen patients and perspectives on how this bill would help your business.”
The SOAR act was among the topics discussed by AAHomecare CEO/President Tom Ryan during a Jan. 8 House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee meeting.
“These patients who are on high-flow oxygen need to have this technology,” he said in response to a question from Rep. Diana Harshbarger, PharmD (R-Tenn.). “It’s actually old technology: One cubic foot of liquid oxygen [expands] to 860 cubic feet of gaseous oxygen. So with a very small container [of liquid oxygen], you can have a much greater amount of [breathable] oxygen.”
In answering another question from Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio), who said his constituents reported “difficulty in finding an oxygen supplier that carries the equipment and supplies for liquid oxygen, particularly portable liquid oxygen,” Ryan said, “You’re correct: The usage of liquid oxygen has gone down significantly over the years. Portable liquid oxygen is down 77%. Stationary liquid oxygen is down 80%. And the reason for this is the reimbursement. The reimbursement of the competitive bidding program would not allow suppliers to provide liquid oxygen.”
Ryan added that the SOAR act would remove oxygen from the Medicare competitive bidding program and “It could get more technology [into] the sector. And it would treat liquid oxygen differently. It would give it a much higher [funding] rate that would hopefully add to some expansion of the product category.”
