Tag: ITEM Coalition
In brief: Stakeholders push back, Owens & Minor upsizes offering, Merits expands
April 4, 2025HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – AAHomecare, the Council for Quality Respiratory Care and VGM are raising concerns with CMS and lawmakers about the access issues and the negative health outcomes that could result from a recent draft proposal for noninvasive positive pressure ventilation.
CMS on March 11 released a proposed decision in response to the request to reconsider NCD 280.1 to establish coverage policies for the use of noninvasive home mechanical ventilators and respiratory assist devices for...
ITEM Coalition supports H.R. 2005
April 3, 2025HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – The ITEM Coalition has lent its support to H.R. 2005, a bill to reestablish 75/25 blended Medicare DME reimbursement rates in non-rural/non-competitive bidding areas. In a letter to the bill’s lead sponsors, the coalition states: “H.R. 2005 is squarely in line with the goals of the ITEM Coalition to ensure that all people can access the specialized devices and services they need to ensure their health and independent function. For these reasons, we are proud to support...
In brief: Byram makes digital health play, AAH releases Impact Report, ITEM pushes repair reform
February 12, 2025HME News Staff
RICHMOND, Va. – Byram Healthcare, part of the Owens & Minor family, has launched ByramConnect, a personalized digital health program for people with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes that’s powered by the Welldoc app.
The program, using the Welldoc app’s artificial intelligence capabilities, analyzes member data across six dimensions of health to help optimize outcomes, providing actionable insights and reports that can be shared with providers and care teams.
“Chronic...
ITEM Coalition presses policymakers to address repair issues
February 10, 2025HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – Forty-one members of the ITEM Coalition are calling on policymakers to address a set of policy recommendations to improve access to timely and consistent manual and power wheelchair repairs and maintenance.
“There is strong support to take steps to solve this problem from all those affected by this problem, including consumers, clinicians, and suppliers,” stated Peter W. Thomas, ITEM Coalition co-coordinator. “In fact, the only resistance to our proposals...
Patient advocacy groups press leadership on reimbursement relief
December 4, 2024HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – More than 30 leading patient advocacy organizations have weighed in with congressional leadership to support including provisions from H.R. 5555 and S. 1294 in any legislative package that moves before the end of the year, AAHomecare reports.
In a Dec. 2 letter from the ITEM Coalition, the groups assert that the expiration of 75/25 blended Medicare reimbursement rates on Jan. 1, 2024, has resulted in a “crushing blow to DMEPOS suppliers and providers, threatening...
Representatives urge CMS to cover standing systems
October 10, 2024HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – Reps. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., have sent a letter signed by 22 representatives to CMS urging the agency to open a national coverage analysis for standing systems in power wheelchairs, the ITEM Coalition announced on Oct. 8. The ITEM Coalition made the request for reconsideration of the national coverage determination for mobility assistive equipment to include coverage of standing systems more than four years ago. “The ITEM Coalition remains...
Letter for standing systems extended
October 1, 2024HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – The deadline to collect so-signers for a Dear Colleague letter that asks CMS to move forward with a pending national coverage analysis for power standing systems has been extended to Friday, Oct. 4. The letter, spearheaded by Reps Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., had an original deadline of Sept. 30. “The absence of Medicare coverage for these systems leaves many beneficiaries without access to critical technology that can significantly improve their...
In brief: CMS to end CHOPD, Lincare CEO to lead CQRC
June 19, 2024HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – CMS has announced that payments under the Accelerated and Advance Payment (AAP) Program for the Change Healthcare/Optum Payment Disruption (CHOPD) will conclude on July 12, 2024.
Launched in early March, the CHOPD payments were designed to ease cash flow disruptions experienced by some Medicare providers and suppliers, such as hospitals, physicians and pharmacists, due to the unprecedented cyberattack that took health care electronic data interchange Change Healthcare...
ITEM Coalition presses for Medicare coverage of standing coverage
June 18, 2024HME News Staff
WASHINGTON – The ITEM Coalition has reaffirmed its request for CMS to open a National Coverage Analysis (“NCA”) for Medicare coverage of standing systems in power wheelchairs. The ITEM Coalition submitted its original national coverage determination request for coverage of both seat elevation and standing systems in 2020. CMS bifurcated the original NCD request and granted coverage of power seat elevation in May 2023. “While the ITEM Coalition applauds CMS’s...
Stakeholders make progress on power standing, repair
October 13, 2023Liz Beaulieu, Editor
WASHINGTON – Complex rehab technology stakeholders participated in a call with CMS on Sept. 26 to provide the agency with additional information to support Medicare coverage for power standing systems.
The meeting was led by the ITEM Coalition and attended by Wayne Grau, executive director of NCART, and Cara Masselink, executive director of the Clinician Task Force, as well as physicians, clinicians, manufacturers and consumers.
“I would love to tell you, ‘It’s...