AAHomecare President: Become A Champion of Home Care
The following column is by Tyler Wilson, president and CEO of AAHomecare:
Just before the August recess, the House and Senate passed different versions of a reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The House legislation incorporated a number of significant Medicare provisions, including a couple that could pose a real challenge for the home-care community. Language in the House bill would reduce the rental period for oxygen equipment from 36 to 18 months and eliminate a patient's option to purchase a power wheelchair in the first month.
The Senate version contained no Medicare provisions.
The SCHIP and Medicare legislation are front-burner issues for Congress, and they are likely to be taken up this fall by a conference committee in which key senators and representatives with jurisdiction over Medicare will hash out differences. A final version of the legislation will go back to each chamber for approval. If both houses approve, it will go to the president, who threatens a veto if, in his view, the bill expands Medicare.
What can home care providers do? Contact your members of Congress in both houses to urge your legislators to leave home-care cuts out of the final version of the children's health bill. AAHomecare recommends phone calls or electronic messages filled out on a congressional member's individual Web site in order to ensure that the messages are delivered quickly and directly. You can find talking points and telephone scripts at www.aahomecare.org
It is important to include patients and their families in this effort. Home-care providers must build relationships with local patient and senior organizations that can help champion home care. Involvement should be an ongoing process ? not just a phone call when home care is under assault. You may also find local and state chapters of AARP, the American Lung Association, and disability groups to be effective partners in spreading awareness of home-care issues.
During the AAHomecare Washington Legislative Conference in June, we were fortunate to have two presenters who spoke eloquently from the patient's perspective. Vlady Rozenbaum is an oxygen user and founder of COPD-ALERT, a patients' advocacy group. "Patients depend on providers," he told conference members. "Providers instruct patients about proper use of equipment, replacement supplies, and respond to emergencies, such as blackouts or equipment failure."
Rozenbaum believes that patients and patients' organizations should be front and center in the fight for sound home-care policy in Washington. He participated in a June 2006 congressional briefing sponsored by AAHomecare to inform congressional staff about the difficulties patients would face with a cap on oxygen and the problems of transferring oxygen-equipment ownership to patients after 36 months. Both provisions were enacted as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
Also speaking at the conference was Ms. Wheelchair Massachusetts 2007, Kristen McCosh. She spoke about the importance of remaining at home rather than in an institution so people can live with greater independence and control over their lives. "We need to support funding to keep people home," she told the group. McCosh attended some of the congressional meetings that were part of the 2007 Washington Legislative Conference.
In addition to speaking with members of Congress about the detrimental Medicare cuts that have been passed by the House, members of the home-care community need to continue to line up cosponsors for bills to resolve some of the issues with the competitive bidding problem (H.R. 1845 and S. 1428). Strong lobbying by the home care community helped expand the window for the first round of competitive bidding. But, ideally, we can make changes to the program that will make it fairer and preserve access to care for home care patients.
Tyler Wilson is president and CEO for the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare), the national organization that represents providers and manufacturers of all lines of home care products and services. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., AAHomecare works closely with Congress, Medicare and other federal agencies to strengthen home care policy in America in order to preserve access to quality health care in the home.
This article originally appeared in the September 2007 issue of HME Business.