TRINIDAD, Colo. - If you're a complex rehab provider with a limited traveling budget, NRRTS has made your life easier. The organization, along with NCART and the University of Pittsburgh, will co-locate its annual Continuing Education and Legislative Advocacy Conference (CELA) at the HME Expo and Conference in Baltimore April 21-23, 2009.

"Budgets are tight and rehab providers can travel only one or two times a year," said Sharon Hildebrandt, executive director of NCART. "This gives them the biggest bang for their buck."

For $175, NRRTS registrants will be able to attend the event's six to 12 educational sessions, participate in its Capitol Hill visits and attend the HME Expo's education program and exposition hall.

Friends of NRRTS (FONs) can attend CELA 2009/Complex Rehab and Legislative Conference for $225; non-NRRTS registrants can attend for $250.

"We're doing what we did last year but taking it to the next step," said Simon Margolis, executive director of NRRTS. "We're making it even more mainstream, in terms of getting the word out and opening it up to more people."

Access 180 and HME News are co-producing the HME Expo.

Despite its affiliation with the Expo, NRRTS still plans a "homey" conference. For example, CELA attendees will stay in a room block at the same hotel, Margolis said.

"We're now part of a much more sophisticated program, but we're going to have our own little enclave," he said.

CELA and HME Expo organizers were brought together by a "common vision," one that includes pounding the pavement in Washington, D.C., said Cory Smith, vice president of marketing for Access 180.

"We saw the need to give people the opportunity to have face time with members of Congress," he said. "We saw the need to communicate a better understanding of what exactly the industry does. This is not an equipment industry. It's about services and care."