Home Health & Hospice Week

New wheelchair coverage forum set for June.

A wave of panic gripped the diabetic shoe supplier industry when the National Supplier Clearinghouse issued a new policy on who could furnish the items. But the policy, which has since been yanked, was a false alarm.

Current Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services policy on who can furnish therapeutic shoes for diabetes is vague, identifying providers only as podiatrists or "other qualified individuals," said attorney Eric Zimmerman of McDermott, Will & Emery in Washington, DC at the May 26 Open Door Forum for home health.

Revamping that definition has long been on CMS' regulatory agenda (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 1). So diabetic shoe suppliers were surprised when the NSC posted a newly restrictive definition of who is qualified to furnish the items on its Web site May 14. "It was pretty disruptive to that community," Zimmerman contends.

"My phone began ringing off the hook," agreed a representative from the National Community Pharmacists Association. More than 5,000 pharmacists dispense diabetic shoes, said the rep from NCPA, which accredits pharmacists who furnish diabetic shoes.

The NSC posted the policy based on a recent unreleased hearing officer decision, a CMS official explained. "It became pretty controversial immediately," the staffer admitted. Thus, CMS asked the NSC to pull the definition.

CMS still is debating its next step, but suppliers shouldn't expect the NSC's policy to be reinstated any time soon, it appears. "The most important thing is things have not changed" due to the NSC's "temporary posting," a CMS source stressed in the forum.

Maybe This Time Suppliers Can Talk

CMS will hold a marathon four-hour special Open Door Forum on wheelchair coverage June 14 at 1 p.m. ET, officials announced. The forum will focus only on clinical coverage guidance for power wheelchairs, even though suppliers are sure to want to talk about many related issues.

Participants shouldn't be rushed, CMS said, which is why the agency made sure the forum is quite lengthy. At the last wheelchair forum, the 500 people who phoned in didn't get to say a word as in-person attendees took up the entire time allotment (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 13).