Home Health & Hospice Week

Bill would be boon to oxygen suppliers.

Oxygen therapy providers can applaud recent headlines about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

That's because two new developments suggest that awareness of--and treatment for--COPD could increase in coming years.

On Jan. 18, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health launched "COPD: Learn More Breathe Better," a national campaign designed to improve awareness among those at greatest risk for the disease. NIH launched the initiative in partnership with the American Association for Homecare and other professional societies, health, and advocacy organizations.

On the same day, Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) introduced legislation to assist pulmonary and cardiac Medicare patients by increasing access to critical rehabilitation programs. The Pulmonary and Cardiac Rehabilitation Act (S. 329) will include pulmonary and cardiac rehab as specific services covered by Medicare.

The bill would establish a uniform Medicare policy for covering pulmonary and cardiac rehab. By doing so, it would effectively end a decade-long debate among providers, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the various fiscal intermediaries responsible for the reimbursement of these services, according to the bill's sponsors. Currently, neither pulmonary nor cardiac rehab services are specifically included in the Medicare statute.

While Medicare often covers these programs under the "incident to physician services" clause, coverage is inconsistent without a national policy, said the senators in a news release regarding the bill. That results in limited access to necessary care and lack of reimbursement in many cases, they said.

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. and is expected to be the third leading cause of death by 2020, according to the NIH.