Healthcare Bills Will Hamper Medicare Services for Seniors and the Disabled

18th December 2009 WASHINGTON, — Significant changes are needed in healthcare reform legislation to prevent senior citizens and the disabled from facing a difficult time obtaining homecare products through Medicare. The current legislation would likely prevent or delay many Medicare beneficiaries from receiving critical medical equipment that helps sustain their lives and allows them to live independently in their homes for longer periods of time.

Unfortunately, in piecing this historic legislation together, lawmakers may have overlooked the fact that some of the changes for medical equipment providers would adversely impact their ability to deliver timely and quality service to Medicare beneficiaries.

To be sure, America’s healthcare system must be improved. But there should also be a responsibility to ensure that the changes don’t place additional burdens upon Medicare beneficiaries, who are already some of the most vulnerable men and women in our society.

Medicare’s power mobility benefit would be hit especially hard.

Currently, Medicare allows a beneficiary to purchase power wheelchair in the first month it is prescribed or rent the equipment for 13 months. The legislation eliminates a beneficiary’s early purchase option. Seniors and people living with disabilities, who qualify for power wheelchairs, usually suffer from long-term, chronic conditions so they overwhelming chose the early purchase. Without the first month purchases, providers say they won’t have the cash flow to pay the wheelchair manufacturers or provide other services required. Many equipment suppliers anticipate that they may go out of business or no longer offer power wheelchairs, a development that would make it more difficult for beneficiaries to find providers in their area.

Some in Congress recognize the potential danger from ending the early purchase.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter proposed an amendment to preserve the first-month purchase option while obligating suppliers to pay back Medicare when equipment isn’t used full term. The Congress, however, quickly showed how much financial concerns are out weighing practical ones: The Specter amendment essentially died when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contended that only $200 million would be saved over 10 years with his proposal, while lawmakers sought $800 million in savings. The industry maintains that the CBO was wrong, and that much more than $200 million would be saved with Specter’s amendment.

Aware that the Congress is fixated on finding savings to pay for healthcare reform, providers are willing to accept further, yet agonizing, reductions in the reimbursement rates for power wheelchairs in exchange for keeping the purchase option and sustaining a process that would at least allow companies to stay in business.