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Headline News
Users Tangled Up in New CMS Web Site
BALTIMORE--CMS' newly designed Web site is causing headaches for some users who are reporting broken links and difficulties adjusting to the new format, participants said at the agency's Home Health, Hospice and DME Open Door Forum last week.

Last month, CMS overhauled its extensive site and replaced it with a Flash-based version featuring "improved navigation and content organization, current information and an improved Google search feature," the agency said.

But with all of the content reorganized, users' bookmarks have been rendered obsolete, and some are having trouble navigating the site. "I just find it difficult to find the information I need," one phone-in caller said during the session on Wednesday.

Another caller reported "significant issues finding information" on home health. "We're having an extremely difficult time directing providers ... when we go to the home health section of the Web site, none of the links that are provided are working," she said.

After the launch of the new site, CMS announced that it put more than 400 redirects in place, but many links to invalid pages have not yet been replaced. A CMS official acknowledged the problem, and the links to the home health portion of the site were repaired by the end of the week.

Even one CMS representative commented that after the move to the new site, many of her bookmarks were rendered invalid, and she had to figure out where the new pages were located.

To read a more detailed explanation on the Web site's new structure, view a Flash demonstration, or submit feedback, click here. To access the new DMEPOS home page, which includes links to the pages most commonly used by DME providers, click here.

Also at the Open Door Forum:

--Ann Howard of the American Association for Homecare recommended that CMS hold a special Open Door Forum on the upcoming transition from Durable Medical Equipment Regional Carriers to Medicare Administrative Contractors (see HomeCare Monday, Jan. 9). "The supplier community would like the opportunity to participate in the transition to the new MACs, ask questions and raise issues and concerns," she said.
--Jane Thorpe of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (see HomeCare Monday, Dec. 12, 2005) asked if CMS had an estimate of when the competitive bidding rule for DME would be released and when the first round of DMEPOS supplier standards would be finalized. CMS' response to both questions: "We have no one to speak on that."
--One caller expressed frustration after CMS officials were unable to provide answers to various questions and requested that the agency publish both questions asked during the Open Door meetings and the answers given, whether in person or later by e-mail. "I noticed there are not a lot of people there to answer questions," the caller said. "When people ask questions, [they] are being told to e-mail, so they get the answers, but no one else does." A CMS official responded that answers to questions are addressed at a following Open Door Forum if they are of national interest. With certain issues, she said, the agency would consider addressing questions via listserv announcement.

The next Open Door Forum is scheduled for Feb. 14.

Illinois Group Plans Electronic Lobby of Budget Reconciliation Bill
GLENVIEW, Ill.--The Illinois HomeCare Council (IHCC) has scheduled a Virtual Lobby Day on Wednesday to educate legislators about negative home care provisions in the 2006 federal budget reconciliation bill.

S. 1932, which is currently scheduled for a House vote on Feb. 1, would cap oxygen rentals at 36 months (see HomeCare Monday, Jan. 17) and cap rentals of most other DME, excluding power wheelchairs, at 13 months. The measure already has been approved by the Senate.

IHCC's Legislative Affairs Committee is encouraging all stakeholders in the state to contact their members of Congress electronically on Wednesday. According to IHCC, the idea is to contact legislators shortly before they return to Washington so the issue will be fresh on their minds. Congress reconvenes Jan. 31.

"Our goal is 1,500 letters," said Debbie Trueblood Witt, government relations manager for IHCC. According to Witt, IHCC generated more than 1,000 letters on a previous virtual lobby day.

"Virtual Lobby Day is a way for all IHCC members to participate in grass roots advocacy in Washington, D.C., without ever leaving their desks," a notice from the association reads. "Members can go online and send form letters to their legislators advocating to oppose the federal budget bill and the harmful provisions to both home health and DME/HME."

The event also is intended to encourage providers to contact their state representatives in Springfield to support HB 4223, a bill that would provide a phased-in rate increase under home health Medicaid reimbursement.

Telehealth Is Technology to Watch
MELBOURNE, Fla.--Telehealth continues to move forward as an avenue to improve patient care--and for HME providers to improve sales, according to a long-time industry consultant.

"It's a tremendous opportunity," said Shelly Prial of Prial Consulting, Melbourne, Fla., and director of government relations for Graham-Field Health Products, Atlanta. "I think it's very important that providers, if they do nothing else, be cognizant of the fact that a change is taking place," said Prial, who anticipates the market for telehealth equipment will increase considerably in coming years.

Telehealth, which encompasses the delivery of health-related services enabled by technology, includes a broad range of both non-clinical and clinical services, such as medical diagnosis and remote monitoring, health advice by telephone or Internet, or exchange of information via videoconferencing.

Growth in the home telehealth equipment market is evidenced by an increasing number of vendors for the technology and attendees at ATA meetings, said Jonathan D. Linkous, executive director of the American Telemedicine Association, Washington D.C., which was founded in 1993.

"Even though we don't have funding for home telehealth equipment as an explicit line item for Medicare, there is still a lot of growth in this area, as witnessed by the fact that people who are interested in home care--home care providers and related industry--are the fastest-growing part of our membership right now," Linkous said. ATA's eleventh annual meeting is scheduled for May 7-10 in San Diego.

Prial said he believes HME providers could take advantage of anticipated growth in the sector by positioning themselves as liasons among manufacturers of telemedicine technology, health care providers and patients. Providers should "find out from the physicians, home health agencies and the visiting nurse associations that they work with that the interest is there and let them know they are interested, too," so that when the time comes, "they very well may come to you" for business, he said.

Establishing distributorships with manufacturers would provide profits not only on sales of the technology, but could also lead to additional sales of supplies patients need, Prial said. For more of Prial's take on this developing discipline, check the upcoming February issue of HomeCare magazine.

For more on the ATA, visit www.atmeda.org.

In Brief
The deadline to return CMS' Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey is Wednesday. The agency said results from the survey, which was mailed out to 25,000 randomly selected health care providers, will be used to improve service among fee-for-service Medicare contractors. For more information on the survey, visit www.cms.hhs.gov/MCPSS.

The fee for DuoNeb (albuterol and ipratropium bromide) was incorrect in CMS' first-quarter fee schedule for Part B drugs, the DMERCs announced last week. Effective Jan. 13, the fee for the respiratory drug was changed from $2.05 to $1.02 per dose. To view the fee schedule, click here.

The interest rate for Medicare overpayments and underpayments is being lowered this year. Effective Wednesday, Medicare contractors will implement an interest rate of 11.875 percent, the same as the private consumer rate set by the Department of the Treasury. The interest rate last year was 12.25 percent.

A recent RAND Corp. study found that obesity adds $38,000 to the lifetime cost of treating a Medicare beneficiary, compared to one of normal weight. In analyzing a sample of some 10,000 Medicare beneficiaries 65 and older, the authors of the study--titled "Future Health and Medicare Spending of the Elderly"--determined that, except for obesity, eliminating any one chronic illness won't dramatically affect future health care costs. The study found that an "obese" person, beginning at age 70, will cost Medicare some $149,000, which is 20 percent higher than the amount for someone who is "overweight" and 35 percent higher than someone of normal weight. To access the study, click here.

By reporting fraud, waste and abuse in the first six months of 2005, the senior citizen patrol project for the Medicare program helped recover more than $83,000, according to the HHS Office of Inspector General. Beneficiaries saved $45,000 because of the project. In total, 358 complaints resulted in money recouped to the Medicare program or in some other action. The Administration on Aging recruits retired professionals for the project to help stop fraud, waste and abuse by educating beneficiaries to identify and report such activities. The project educated about 193,000 beneficiaries in 64,000 one-on-one and group training sessions between January and June 2005. To get the report, click here.

Coming Up
The North Carolina Association for Medical Equipment Services (NCAMES) will hold its Winter Meeting Feb. 1-3 in Greensboro N.C. For more information, call (919) 387-1221 or visit www.ncames.org.

HHS will hold a Town Hall Meeting Feb. 2 in San Francisco to solicit public comments on the economic impact of major regulations on the health care industry. For more information, call (202) 690-6443 or visit http://aspe.hhs.gov/arrb/index.shtml.

The National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology has postponed its Congressional Fly-In, which had been scheduled for Feb. 6-7 in Washington D.C. For more information, call (202) 776-0652 or visit www.ncartcoalition.org.

The National Association for the Support of Long Term Care (NASL) will hold its 2006 Winter Conference Feb. 8-10 in Arlington, Va. For more information, call (703) 549-8500 or visit www.nasl.org.

CMS will hold its next Home Health, Hospice and DME Open Door Forum Feb. 14. Details on participating in the meeting have yet to be posted. To subscribe to the Open Door Forum listserv, click here.

To revisit this news any time during the week, go to http://www.homecaremonday.com.

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