{"id":1384,"date":"2009-11-24T07:22:59","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T07:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2009-11-24T07:22:59","modified_gmt":"2009-11-24T07:22:59","slug":"the_law_of_unintended_conseque_4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1384","title":{"rendered":"The Law Of Unintended Consequences In Supplying Oxygen To People Who Depend On It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Wall Street Journal<\/a> is reporting on the effect of a change in the way Medicare pays for oxygen services has had on the people who use those services.<\/p>\n

On January 1 of this year, in an attempt to reduce waste and fraud in medical-equipment reimbursements, Medicare changed the rules on payment for oxygen for people with conditions such as emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  Under the new program, Medicare pays what it has traditionally paid for the first three years, then, according to the article:<\/p>\n

\n

“Suppliers are then required to continue providing oxygen services to patients for an additional two years, but at a sharply reduced payment rate. After that, patients are entitled to receive new equipment, and Medicare will resume paying suppliers at the higher rate.”  <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As a result of this change, some suppliers have closed, and others have been reluctant to take patients who are coming to the end of their first three years.  <\/p>\n

The article further states that:<\/p>\n

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“The changes are supported by many in the industry, but some small suppliers say they can’t afford them. It costs $2,500 to $3,500 for a company to go through an accreditation survey, says Wayne Stanfield, president of the National Association of Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers. But a supplier may spend tens of thousands of dollars to comply with the stringent requirements.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I totally understand the government’s desire to save money, but this is not the place to do it.  Instead, why not take a look at the amount of bureaucracy involved in supervising this program.  Is it possible that if we instituted more common-sense regulations, it would take fewer people to administer them?  Is it time simply to overhaul the government–not its medical reimbursement programs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Wall Street Journal is reporting on the effect of a change in the way Medicare pays for oxygen services has had on the people who use those services. On January 1 of this year, in an attempt to reduce waste … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}