Providers Push House Sign-on Letter Right to the Deadline

Sept. 18 deadline looms for providers to get their Representatives to sign a House letter urging CMS to stop basing reimbursement for manual CRT accessories on competitive bidding rates.

• By David Kopf
• Sep 17, 2020

The Sept. 18 deadline has arrived to collect signatures for a Congressional sign-on letter calling on CMS to permanently stop applying competitive bidding rates to reimbursement for accessories for manual CRT wheelchairs. Providers must secure lawmakers’ signatures on Friday.

Introduced by Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), the letter aims to stave off what would likely be considerable reimbursement cuts for those items as early as the implementation of Round 2021.

Consistent Policy

Stopping the application of bid derived pricing to those items would create policy consistency given that CMS already removed power CRT chairs from competitive bidding, and pricing for their accessories is not based on competitive bidding rates.

The 2008 Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) exempted CRT wheelchairs from the competitive bidding program. However, in 2016, CMS moved to use competitive bidding rates to reduce reimbursement for the accessories for CRT chairs. Congress and stakeholders worked to convince CMS to modify its policy in 2017, but CMS only stopped applying bidding-derived pricing to reimbursement for power CRT chair accessories; it maintained the policy for manual CRT chair accessories. 

How to help:

To support the effort, HME and CRT stakeholders should visit protectmymobility.org to access an online form for messaging their lawmakers. They can also download a position paper, the full Congressional letter, and see a list of current signers.