TAKE ACTION TO RESTORE ACCESS TO LOCAL, QUALITY HOME MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLY COMPANIES!

Dear healthcare provider,

On July 1st, implemented a new program for Home Medical Equipment (HME) that has severely limited the number of local home medical equipment and supply companies. Only HME companies that have a Medicare contract can provide the following products:

x Oxygen Supplies and Equipment x Standard (Power and Manual) Wheelchairs, Scooters, and Related Accessories x Enteral Nutrients, Equipment and Supplies x CPAP Devices, Respiratory Assist Devices, and Related Supplies and Accessories x Hospital Beds and Related Accessories x Walkers and Related Accessories x Support Surfaces (Group 2 Mattresses and Overlays) x Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) Pumps and Related Supplies and Accessories

According to our trade association, the Home Medical Equipment and Service Association of New England (HOMES), approximately 50% of all contracts were awarded to out-of-state companies, many of whom have stated that they do not plan to provide these items. You may already be experiencing the impact of this program as you are trying to discharge patients from your facility. If you have been unable to find an HME provider who can provide same-day equipment, unable to work with your preferred HME provider or any other problems with HME that is affecting your ability to discharge your patients, you can take action to fix this problem!

What can you do?

Call your congressman! Congress created this program and only Congress can fix it. Below are the phone numbers for the Health Legislative Aides (HLA) in the Washington DC offices of your members of Congress in . These are the staff members who oversee Medicare problems for constituents. We urge you to take the following actions:

1. Call the HLA for your district as well as the HLA for a congressman who sits on a key committee for Medicare (in bold) 2. If the HLA is unavailable to speak with you, ask to speak with the chief of staff or anyone else in the office about your inability to get equipment for your patients. 3. Ask them what they plan to do to fix this problem. Follow up with an email. 4. Keep calling or emailing them with updates.

This situation was created by a program called Competitive Bidding. Congress is well aware of this program because the HME industry has been lobbying for years to stop it. We knew that this was going to affect your ability to facilitate expedient discharges with HME companies that you trust. They didn’t believe us. Your phone calls and emails will have an impact and will fix this disastrous program.

District 1 – Rep. – HLA Ann Jablon – (202) 225-5601 [email protected] District 2 – Rep. James McGovern – HLA Jennifer Walters (202) 225-6101 [email protected] District 3 – Rep. – HLA Sara Outterson (202) 225-3411 [email protected] District 4 – Rep. Joe III – HLA Caroline Darmody (202) 225-5931 [email protected] District 5 – Rep. – HLA Avenel Joseph (202) 225-2836 [email protected] District 6 – Rep. John Tierney – HLA Natascha Cumberlidge (202) 225-8020 [email protected] District 7 – Rep. Michael Capuano – HLA Robert Primus (202) 225-5111 [email protected] District 8 – Rep. Stephen Lynch – HLA Jim Gordon (202) 225-8273 [email protected] District 9 – Rep. William Keating – HLA Ms. Naz Durakoglu (202) 225-3111 [email protected] Senator – HLA Jon Donenberg (202) 224-4543 [email protected] Senator William Cowan – HLA John Phillips (202) 224-2742 [email protected]

If you have any questions, please call us at (insert your phone number). Thank you for your help.