Leave need to the healthcare professionals

Conspicuously absent from the list of bid winners for Round 2 of competitive bidding is New Braunfels, Texas-based The Scooter Store, which has essentially closed. CBS News takes considerable credit for “exposing” the practices that led to an investigation. An Austin newspaper considers the furloughed employees shocked by the suddenness of the closure, while a San Antonio newspaper classifies them as unemployed. Either way, recovery seems highly unlikely, and in this writer's opinion, we have these folks (and other similar advertisers) to thank for the face-to-face requirement, which we just learned has a problem with the way “other practitioners” are treated.  

We may see the end of Medicare coverage for scooters, just as seat lift chair coverage changed after a massive cable TV advertising program produced similar results. When will we learn to leave the identification of need to the healthcare professionals instead of advertising experts?

—Michael Hamilton, communications director, ATHOMES, and

executive director, ADMEA