Federal Issues

Pressure Put on CMS to Fix Problems with Home Mechanical Ventilation

For the past two years, the AARC has worked diligently with other national pulmonary medical societies and patient groups to address problems with access to home mechanical ventilation. Technologies have changed over the past decade and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not kept pace, resulting in inappropriate billing, increased utilization, and a large spike in expenditures. Further, a report by the Inspector General in September 2016 titled “Escalating Medicare Billing for Ventilators Raises Concerns” substantiated these issues.

Meetings with the agency’s Coverage and Analysis Group, a 45-page white paper on the need for change submitted to the local Medicare Administrative Contractors, and a formal request to CMS to reconsider its National Coverage Determination (NCD) resulted in no action.

Now, with new leaders in Congress, AARC has Congressional support from Representative Chris Collins from New York’s 27th District. As a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he has written a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price appealing to his background as a medical professional to get CMS to resolve the problems and act on AARC's formal NCD Reconsideration request.

Click here to read Rep. Collins's letter to Sec. Price.