Category Posts

On Friday, January 14th, 2022, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra announced an extension of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). This extension will last another 90 days from January 16, 2022. Any PHE declaration can only last for 90 days at a time but can be extended or renewed. It has already been renewed multiple times.

There are several provisions tied to the duration of the PHE that will remain in place due to the extension of the PHE, including:

Medicare’s...

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Today, Thursday, January 13, 2022, the Supreme Court stopped the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-testing requirement on the nation’s largest employers, expressing doubt that there is legal authority for such a broad mandate.

But the court allowed a different policy, which requires vaccinations for most healthcare workers at the facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funds.  (Note: With certain exceptions, DMEPOS suppliers do NOT fall within the policy[1].)

Chief...

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While it is true that our industry, and all industries for that matter, face challenges on several fronts, we should take stock in the amazing service, support, and products that our community was able to provide to those in need! Your focus on the patient was never more needed, and each of you rose to the challenge. As you battle through supply shortages, uncertain healthcare policies, public health emergencies, and crazy weather in multiple regions across the county, you continue to...

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Thank you to those who took the time to fill out the PPE expenditures survey. Mark Higley was able to quantify these results into an approximate number of dollars spent on PPE within the DME industry. PPE expenditures hover between $12,000 and $15,000 per DME location.

Click here to view Mark Higley’s analysis. These results have been sent to congressional offices.

Keep your member of Congress updated on these findings too! You can easily reach out to them asking to make...

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Compiled by Mark J. Higley, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs

As we begin 2022 and look back on 2021, we recognize the challenges over the past two years by the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the DMEPOS industry. Coupled with supply chain issues, product recalls and surcharges, demanding demographic changes, and the uncertainty attributable to the reimbursement direction from the industry’s biggest payor (Medicare), it is perhaps somewhat remarkable that our businesses...

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If you are a provider who was required to submit a report to HRSA, and you missed the deadline to submit reports, or would like to make a correction to the report you initially submitted, you now have a second, and likely final, chance to do that. However, that second chance won’t last long. The reporting portal has been re-opened by HRSA, but it will only remain open until December 20th. The statement on their website (https://prfreporting.hrsa.gov/s/) reads:

Yesterday, the Senate passed S.610 - Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act, delaying implementation of an additional 4% reduction in reimbursement for Medicare providers and suppliers as well as the 2% reduction in Medicare sequestration cuts. Congress had deferred the cuts during the COVID-19 public health emergency, but the deferral is scheduled to expire at the end of this...

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It has just been announced that OSHA is suspending enforcement on the vaccine mandate for employers with 100+ employees.

The suspension comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit fully blocked Biden’s executive order requiring companies with over 100 workers to mandate vaccination for their employees after temporarily stating it on November 12. The court ordered that OSHA “take no steps to implement or enforce” the vaccine mandate “until further...

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The White House has issued new information to clarify two separate and distinct vaccine mandates that will impact several businesses throughout the U.S; namely 1) a vaccine mandate for staff at various healthcare provider settings and 2) a vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more employees. The fact sheet for both mandates can be found here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/04/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-details-of-two-major-vaccination-policies/.

Both...

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As you may recall, last month the White House administration announced a vaccine mandate for employers with more than 100 employees, as well as a mandate on healthcare workers (HME suppliers included). We’ve been taking many questions from our members on this issue. Many are asking if this really take effect and what steps to be taking now.

So, will this really take effect?

According to this Forbes magazine article from October 29, there are currently approximately 10...

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