Medicare

Each year, we publish a State of the Industry Report full of data that gives you a snapshot of the industry from year to year.

(Go here to download last year's report.)

Jon Jasperson, the president of Aspirant Education (www.dmetrain.com) emailed me this morning with a link to a story about how members of an "Armenian organized cr

Professor Larry Van Horn, a self-professed "bitter evil little man," on the future of Medicare.

Van Horn just asked attendees in the room to raise their hands if they would have voted for healthcare reform. A few hands. How many would not have voted for reform? A lot of hands.

Our local Sunday paper does a Q&A in its job listings section. How, wondered I, would the mainstream media handle the intracacies of reporting on our odd little HME world?

This headline was in my inbox this morning: "Got diabetes? Do these things or you may go blind." Well, thanks, that's helpful.

Like other providers who submitted bids in Round 1.2 of competitive bidding, provider Randy Freeman, of Mediwell in Forth Worth, was feeling a little nervous yesterday.

"I had confidence last time," he said. "Now I am real concerned with where some of the nutjobs are going to bid."

A common theme comes up when talking to providers about diabetes patients and the competitive bidding program: I hear frequently about how this population of patients is typically the neediest, in terms of care and instruction.

I came across this story about a Medicare bennie who, well, the lead on this story sums it up better than I ever could:

The call came in around 3 this afternoon.

"Theresa, do you remember me?" asked the caller. "I just got my billing number reinstated, but only to March 27. What about all those other months of rental on my equipment?"