Rep. Price Meets with Provider, VGM

HME owner, VGM’s Gallagher ask longtime industry ally to back audit reform, binding bids bill.

• By David Kopf
• Oct 16, 2014

Todd Tyson, owner of Hi Tech Healthcare and past president of Georgia Association of Medical Equipment Suppliers, recently joined John Gallagher, vice president-government relations for the VGM Group Inc. to meet with longtime industry ally, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.).

The pair asked Rep. price to co-sign H.R 5083, the Audit Improvement and Reform Act, and H.R. 4920, the binding bids bill.  Dr. Price is the lawmaker who introduced H.R. 1717, the bill that would replace competitive bidding with the industry’s Market Pricing Program, but he has yet to attach his name to the AIR Act and the Binding Bids bill.

 “We stressed the importance of the timing of adding language to legislation that may move through Congress this year because CMS is already beginning the registration Round 2 Rebid this fall, with actual bidding to begin in the winter,” Tyson said. “Time is of the essence because we have to fix this before the bid process is completed.”

Price sits on the House Ways and Means committee, Budget committee, as well as the Congressional Doctors Caucus, and has been vocal at hearings with CMS, showing his support to medical suppliers. He has raised concerns regarding the harm that could befall beneficiaries in the wake of competitive bidding, as well as the negative impact the program would have on small businesses.