The House Energy & Commerce Committee has approved H.R. 2328, the Reauthorizing and Extending America’s Community Health (REACH) Act, which contains various provisions that would protect manual complex rehab technology (CRT) wheelchairs.
The news comes a week after the Energy & Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee approved the bill.
H.R. 2328 would permanently exclude CRT manual wheelchairs from the competitive bidding program and exempt CRT manual wheelchair accessories from bidding-derived pricing from Jan. 1, 2020 through Dec. 31, 2020.
The Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees approved the same CRT language in June as part of another bill, H.R. 3249, the Health Equity and Access for Returning Troops and Servicemembers (HEARTS) Act. This means the full House can now consider the manual CRT provisions as part as of a standalone bill or some other legislative package.
“The HME community, patient advocacy groups, and our champions on Capitol Hill have been dogged in their pursuit of a legislative fix to keep manual CRT wheelchairs and accessories outside of the bidding program’s purview,” said Tom Ryan, president and CEO of the American Association for Homecare. “Thanks to grassroots advocacy to build strong, bipartisan support for manual CRT legislation in both the last Congressional session and the current one, we’re moving closer to further protecting patient access to CRT.”
