Editorial
Three recommendations for providers approaching accreditation renewal
June 8, 2023Matt Gruskin
DMEPOS providers often view the accreditation renewal process as a daunting, time consuming and stress-inducing process—but it doesn’t have to be. While accreditation is essential to maintaining compliance with CMS and ensuring that businesses have a “patient safety first” mindset, providers can flip their mindset to view it as an opportunity to improve and evaluate their strategy.
Here are three recommendations for DMEPOS providers approaching their three-year cycle...
How to prepare for Medicaid dis-enrollment
June 8, 2023Andrea Stark
Continuous Medicaid enrollment established under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ended on March 31, 2023. I am sure I am not the first to tell you about the millions of Medicaid beneficiaries that will lose coverage in the coming months. Nonetheless, I hope I can offer a few insights to better prepare you for the ramifications of so many patients potentially changing coverage in a short period of time.
In exchange for a 6.2% Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP)...
Reflection, preview and prediction
February 1, 2022HME News Staff
As we begin 2022, I believe it is healthy to reflect on the year and see where we’ve been and what we might have in store for the coming year. It is fair to say that home care providers have had to rapidly adapt to a new normal shaped by a pandemic that has impacted providers to the very core.
We are all aware of the current challenges facing us, albeit temporary: supply chain issues; workforce strain and/or personnel shortages; and inflation. However, there have been a number...
What's the outlook for CPAP supply in 2022?
December 29, 2021R.J. Meyer
Toilet paper. As the pandemic loomed, people began reporting low or non-existent stock of toilet paper on store shelves. Who could have predicted that a toilet paper shortage would be an early sign of supply chain challenges? Challenges that are likely to last well into 2022, and maybe even beyond.
When it comes to supply chain challenges, the biggest issue is that there isn’t just one issue. Is it the ocean ports? Staffing shortages? Manufacturing constraints? Supply chains...
CMR: ‘You ensure no one is left behind’
October 29, 2021Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Editor’s note: The following is a message that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers gave to the attendees of the Virtual AAHomecare Washington Legislative Conference on Sept. 29.
I’d like to start by saying thank you to everyone here for your tremendous work during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more than a year now, you’ve joined doctors and nurse across the country working around the clock to care for the sick and save lives. Many of you have been going to work each day putting your...
Tsunami of rising costs impacting DME supplier community
October 1, 2021HME News Staff
There are a myriad of challenges facing DME/HME providers, not the least of which is a sharp increase in costs pertaining to several facets of their business. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PPE, fuel, vehicle and labor costs have risen sharply. Several major DME manufacturers have now announced yet another round of surcharges that have been or will be implemented. In other industries, when a surcharge or price increase is incurred, the cost is passed to the end user purchasing that product....
Rising costs and stagnant reimbursements are squeezing HME suppliers
October 1, 2021HME News Staff
That’s a phrase I’ve used repeatedly over the last year-and-a-half in interviews, op-eds, and discussions with policymakers and HME leaders. As AAHomecare continues the aggressive national media outreach campaign we started this year, and also engages Capitol Hill and CMS to secure much-needed and long-overdue adjustments to Medicare reimbursement rates, I know I’ll have ample opportunity to continue to point out HME’s essential contributions to meeting the challenges posed...
There's value in hospital-in-home in post-pandemic environment
July 30, 2021Debbie Fisher
COVID-19 imposed massive changes to the world throughout 2020. It rocked the health care world, in particular, bringing facilities to capacity and many would-be patients to avoid hospitals because of their perceived risk of contracting the virus. The public health crisis amounted to 41% of Americans delaying or avoiding care by the end of June 2020(1). With 32% of deferments for routine health care and 12% for urgent or emergency care, chronic conditions place patients at a higher risk for severe...
Higher product costs and supply chain bottlenecks continue to challenge HME
May 28, 2021Gordon Barnes
Even as vaccination rates grow and new cases of COVID-19 are slowing nationwide, HME suppliers and manufacturers remain in the grip of another side effect of the pandemic: higher product costs and increased operational expenses.
HME suppliers first began seeing these impacts in early 2020, as demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) surged, with shortages and higher costs quickly following. Additional impacts of the pandemic were confirmed in a May 2020 survey on supply chain disruptions...
With resilience, business has continued
March 1, 2021Miriam Lieber
Looking back at 2020, one of the additions I have made to my repertoire during the pandemic is to listen to more podcasts while walking, cooking, etc. Recently, I listened to a podcast on LinkedIn with the prolific author, Adam Grant. He spoke about some of his takeaways from 2020. He mentioned using the experience of last year to “go back and interview teams for re-entry. What have we done that’s worked? What is the most surprising lesson you’ve learned by working from home? What...