Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) are preparing to introduce legislation into the House in September that would protect manual CRT wheelchair accessories from competitive bidding-derived reimbursement, according to the American Association for Homecare and the National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology.
The legislative language for the bill is now available at http://bit.ly/2vUDRLW.
A previous bill, H.R. 1361, aimed to bar CMS from applying bidding-derived reimbursement rates for both power and manual CRT accessories. However, CMS announced at the end of June that it would no longer apply those pricing schemes to power CRT accessories. It did not include manual CRT accessories in that rule. The new legislation would continue the original legislative effort for the remaining, manual CRT accessories.
“Passage of this new bill is needed to fix the current disparity that prevents people who use a CRT manual wheelchair from having the same access to CRT accessories as those using a CRT power wheelchair,” said NCART Executive Director Donald Clayback.
While congress is in recess for August, Reps. Zeldin and Larson have been pursuing additional members of the House to support the bill. As it stands, 33 additional lawmakers have agreed to co-sponsor the bill when it is released in September. A list of the Representatives is at http://bit.ly/2uMsPmY.
Both NCART and AAHomecare called on providers to reach out to Representatives that have not yet committed to supporting the bill, and urge them to co-sponsor the legislation when congress returns to Capitol Hill in September. An issue paper to help them in their lobbying efforts is available at http://bit.ly/2vVjRbe.
