NRRTS responds to the AARP
By Liz Beaulieu, Editor
Updated Wed November 18, 2009
A few blogs ago, I wrote about an editorial in the recent AARP Bulletin titled "The Case of the Expensive Wheelchair." Simon Margolis, executive director of NRRTS, has crafted a response titled "The Case of the Misinformed Editor."
The crux of Margolis' argument: The press (and members of Congress and officials at CMS, for that matter) should keep their hands off of complex rehab. Instead, it should focus on consumer power:
These are the suppliers that are gaming the system. These are the suppliers that, through often misleading advertising, create a need among seniors and other viewers for power wheelchairs that didn't exist before. These suppliers provide equipment in a manner that circumvents the rules set up by Medicare. Somehow they get away with it. In fact, these suppliers have been fined millions of dollars by the OIG, yet they are still allowed to take the American taxpayer's money as a Medicare supplier."
Those are some strong words. But then again, Margolis is one of a group of stakeholders that's trying to divorce themselves from consumer power by creating a separate benefit for complex rehab.
Read Margolis' full response here. Just click on breaking news.
Liz Beaulieu
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