Home Health & Hospice Week

Legislation could inspire other states.

Think you needn't bother with accreditation? You might need to think again.

While the federal government is still talking about quality standards for durable medical equipment suppliers, Florida has become the latest state to take matters into its own hands. That could mean big changes for suppliers in the Sunshine State - and in other states that look to Florida as a role model.

State Rep. Julio Robaina last month introduced House Bill 179, which requires home medical equipment suppliers to be accredited to get or renew their state license. The Miami Republican says the fly-by-night operations he saw opening around his city, a notorious hotbed for DME fraud, inspired him to pen the bill.

"Two new ones just popped up recently in the shopping center where one of my offices is located," Robaina says. The schemes are being carried out "almost openly, with no respect for how fraudulent this really is," he charges.

In an effort to shut down shady dealers, Robaina's bill would require HME providers to be credentialed by one of the three major HME accrediting bodies: the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Community Health Accreditation Program or the Accreditation Commission for Healthcare.

Robaina's measure also would:
  increase the amount of liability insurance required of HME providers from at least $250,000 per claim to $300,000;
  mandate that high-tech medical equipment providers - HME companies offering ventilator or tracheotomy care, life-sustaining or technologically advanced equipment, or similar services and products to patients under age 21 - have on staff at least one licensed respiratory therapist who is a certified RT, a registered RT or a registered nurse;
  order HME providers to maintain safe premises that are fully accessible to all patients between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.;
  require suppliers to offer customers appropriately staffed after-hours emergency services; and
  create a statewide toll-free telephone number for reporting suspected HME fraud and abuse at 800-962-2873.

Leaders in the state's HME industry say they generally support accreditation requirements. In fact, Javier Talamo - a health care attorney with Kravitz & Talamo in Hialeah, FL and vice president of the Florida Association of Medical Equipment Services - played an important role in shaping Robaina's bill. Jumping the Gun on Federal Standards? Florida is just the latest state to consider standards for HME. Ohio lawmakers last summer passed a law requiring certain HME providers to be licensed by the Ohio Respiratory Care Board or to be nationally accredited and registered by the Board.

"We're in the process of writing the rules right now to implement the law," reports Board member Joel Marx, president of Medical Service Companies in Cleveland.

Ohio's HME law specifically mentions JCAHO as an acceptable accrediting organization, but [...]