Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS mum on possible remedies.

Feelings were running high at a March 3 special listening session on Operation Wheeler Dealer, as CMS officials got an earful from suppliers on exactly what's wrong with the OWD changes. "This policy is pushing a lot of small businesses out of business," fumed Donald Needham, owner of Indian Trail, NC-based Knowledge Concepts Inc., in the forum. Needham was referring to the so-called "clarification" of wheelchair coverage policy issued by the durable medical equipment regional carriers in December (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 3, p. 19). "If we continue to go on like this, we'll be out of business," lamented Laura Mitchell, owner of Carol Stream, IL-based Chicagoland Accessibility. Mitchell was just one of the many suppliers who complained of wheelchair claims being held up in medical review since Operation Wheeler Dealer's launch last September. Suppliers, beneficiary advocates, clinicians and others were furious with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and especially the DMERCs' implementation of the change to coverage policy. Here were some of their chief beefs: No action from CMS. Highest on providers' list of complaints was the fact that CMS and the DMERCs have implemented the policy, but now claim that they haven't had enough time to make any further decisions on it or even talk about possible changes. After repeatedly calling CMS to set up a meeting on the policy change, the ITEM Coalition heard nothing, complained Peter Thomas. "And yet the machinery continues on down the line and this rule becomes more and more entrenched every day that goes by," Thomas blasted. "It's been three months since this policy has come out, and every day it goes on," agreed Don Clayback of The Med Group. "It's making a bad situation worse." Numerous providers implored CMS to move from the discussion phase to the action phase quickly. CMS reiterated that it wouldn't answer ay questions or set timelines in the forum. But an official did say "These forums are not just here to let you vent. They're not just here to act like we care, we do. We want to hear this input and it is valuable." Providers punished. It was CMS that failed to catch the blatant fraud taking place in Harris County, TX and elsewhere, but it's law-abiding wheelchair suppliers who are paying the price, a number of supplier said. "This is a knee-jerk reaction to someone not paying attention ... they fell asleep at the switch," one participant commented. Mom-and-pops. In a March 1 Associated Press article, a CMS official said it is big-business wheelchair companies trying to preserve their profits who are raising a stink about the wheelchair policy changes, not mom-and-pop organizations. Numerous callers [...]