Page 11 - HME Business, September/October 2020

The New ... Normal?
2020 has been the year everyone would rather forget, with COVID-19 presenting the industry with a murder hornets’ nest of complication in particular. What do the next few months hold for the industry?
By David Kopf
Back in April, as everyone already realized the COVID-19 pandemic meant serious business, we were subjected to another terror: murder hornets. Sure, the infectious disease that was rampaging throughout the world was the primary threat, but murder hornets became the mascot for the year everyone was already wishing would go far, far away. The avian peril defined the tone of what we strained to call the “new normal.” (A ridiculous description given that nothing about 2020 has been normal.)
But the HME industry’s experience with COVID-19 has shown that at least for the time being, normal is going
to be anything but normal. Providers have had to adopt all-new protocols and procedures; they’ve had to totally reorganize their businesses and workforces; they have had to develop all-new ways to coordinate and communicate with patients and referral sources. Moreover, the variety of funding and regulatory changes, as well as aid programs has been tough for providers to monitor. In short, it’s been the new abnormal since March.
And COVID-19 is going to color at least the next several months ahead. So, for our annual round- table interview with members from HMEB’s Editorial Advisory Board, we looked at the public health emergency, as well as other factors that will impact providers. Let’s dive in:
WHITHER ROUND 2021?
Cara Bachenheimer, Lobbyist/
Government Affairs for Brown & Fortunato, P.C.
At the time of this interview, we’re in the third week of September, and we have no information from CMS about whether or not the bidding program is actually going to start when it is scheduled to start on Jan. 1, 2021. There’s obviously, been a huge amount
of lobbying to get CMS to push the pause button on the program, given the pandemic and given the significant role that oxygen is playing in taking care of COVID-19 patients. But this is a time when we would normally expect the CBIC to be issuing information about the single payment amounts, and in another month to two months, we’d know who the bidders are. But it’s been, literally, radio silence from CMS in terms of next steps. And in conjunction with that, we don’t have a proposed payment rule.
This rule was originally finished by CMS and was
sent over to the Office of Management Budget (OMB) in March, right before the pandemic. And we were expecting a proposal to come out early July. Then we’d have a 60-day comment period. And then the govern- ment comes out around Nov. 1 with a final rule.
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