Earlier this month, AAHomecare’s Tom Ryan and Jay Witter, along with Jenna Pederson of Lincare, met with 11 individuals representing the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and its Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs sub-group, HHS, CMS, and the National Economic Council to provide HME industry perspectives on a proposed CMS Interim Final Rule (IFR) providing reimbursement rate relief for rural/non-bid areas. The IFR is currently under review at OMB.
In that meeting, we shared our data on consistently declining HME supplier numbers since 2013 as well as interim findings from the Dobson DaVanzo patient access survey.
The Administration representatives appeared to give credence to the material and perspectives we shared, and asked us for additional analysis that we are currently putting together. This meeting once again demonstrated the importance of our efforts to deploy the survey and get strong case manager and patient response in a short time frame. Thanks to efforts from HME stakeholders nationwide, as of yesterday we had received surveys submitted by 346 case managers, 405 beneficiaries, as well as 251 suppliers.
** Thanks to the Ohio HME providers who have helped encourage participation in this important survey in a very short time period. OAMES will share the study when AAHomecare publishes the final results.