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CHA has submitted comments to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) in response to the commission’s September discussion on the effects of the Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, & Supplies (DMEPOS) Competitive Bidding Program, urging significant changes to modernize current DME payment and regulatory policy so that it aligns with the goals of value-based payment and reduced regulatory burden.
September’s discussion focused on access to diabetes testing supplies and expanding the DMEPOS items and supplies subject to competitive bidding in the future.
In its letter, CHA details the frequent challenges of obtaining durable medical equipment (DME) for patients at discharge from the hospital and post-acute care settings and encourages MedPAC to further examine the root cause issues that contribute to decreased beneficiary access and delays in hospital discharge.
Last year, CHA made recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on developing, collecting, and publicly reporting supplier performance metrics and adherence to contract provisions to foster competition and improve DME supplier performance. In addition, CHA believes that a number of access issues could be addressed with improvements to the DMEPOS quality standards.
CHA continues to work closely with CMS staff to document the challenges that hospital and post-acute care case management staff have experienced in obtaining timely DME to support hospital discharge and looks forward to engaging with MedPAC as well.
