Editor’s Note:  CRE has long warned about a wide-scale expansion of competitive bidding.

From: HME News

WASHINGTON – The Office of Inspector General (OIG) recommends in a new study that CMS change the way it pays for home infusion drugs.

One of the options laid out by the OIG: Include home infusion drugs in the next round of competitive bidding. While external infusion pumps and supplies were included in the Round 1 re-compete (but not Round 1 or Round 2), CMS has not included drugs at all. CMS concurred with this recommendation.

Editor’s Note:  See the following article  appears in  Human Events.  Basically CMS believes they are untouchable and is going to proceed with an arbitrary pricing system wrapped in a bow titled “competitive bidding”. Senator Dirksen ( Circa early 60’s)  once stated that people “see the iight when they feel the pain”. It is time the regulated industry abide by Senator Dirksen’s comments with full recognition that since they are regulated it is best to work through credible  and recognized  third parties such as CRE.

New Medicare bidding rules, pricing raise objections

From: Home Care Magazine

The plummeting reimbursement rates set by Medicare for Durable Medical Equipment (DME) demonstrate why its procurement system for home medical equipment is a defective process likely to produce troubling results. The bid program allows the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to impose arbitrary pricing on oxygen therapy, power wheelchairs, and other critical equipment and services for beneficiaries.

“If this kind of manipulated procurement process were utilized by an industry in the private sector, it would be panned as price fixing and the Justice Department would be investigating,” said Tyler Wilson, president of the American Association for Homecare. His members, the providers and manufacturers of home medical equipment, are outraged over the devastating reimbursement rates released this week.

From: HME News

From: Home Care Magazine