Hello, HME News? This is the GAO, and we have some questions about oxygen
By Mike Moran
Updated Tue September 8, 2009
This morning, little old me, the humble executive editor of HME News, spent 40 minutes on the phone with four Government Accountability Office officials, answering questions about Medicare oxygen. порно аниме онлайн зрелые письки
Unstable Fables: Goldilocks & 3 Bears Show divx I felt kind of important. I mean, I'm usually the one who calls government officials to ask questions. They never call me. Never. So this was a first.
In case you don't know, the GAO is "the investigative arm of Congress" and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government. In the past, the GAO has highlighted instances, when in its opinion, Medicare paid too much for DME.
Now, the GAO folks I talked to seemed very nice, but during the course of our conversation, it began to seem odd to me that an arm of the federal government—with all the massive resources that entails—would call me (a relative nobody) and want to discuss Medicare oxygen. I mean, I'm not an expert on this stuff. I just report on it. Why not go to the source: CMS. Really, I would have been only a little more surprised if Warren Buffet had called wanting to discuss 401k diversification strategies.
What surprised me the most was the basic nature of the questions.
Angels & Demons movie download The Mistress of Spices movie For example, they askedt how many oxygen providers bill Medicare. What's the difference between a supplier number and an NPI number? Does HME News have data on the cognitive disabilities of oxygen patients? (That was my favorite question. I said no.) Do providers like to be called DMEs or HMEs? What am I hearing about national competitive bidding? (Nobody in the HME industry likes it, I said, with a laugh.) Tell us a little about the typical manufacturer of respiratory equipment.
That was pretty much it.
After we hung up, I couldn't shake the feeling that these GAO officials knew little or nothing about the industry. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine that this kind of on-the-job training will result in any thing good for HME providers.
— Mike Moran
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