On competitive bidding, criticism and what we do at HME News

A recent LinkedIn post caught my eye:

“Reporting the publicly traded company’s financial results doesn’t help us. Our industry magazines are not a friend to us as they promote the wrong companies for ad revenue.”

Ouch.

Let’s rewind. That comment came in response to the news that CMS plans to move forward with another round of national competitive bidding. Not shocking, but still unsettling. The last round only included a few product categories – CMS said the rest didn’t yield significant savings – but the damage was already done. Reimbursement rates have been slashed through multiple rounds of bidding, and the meager CPI-U adjustments over the years haven’t come close to restoring sustainability. That’s why stakeholders continue fighting for blended rates and fairer reimbursement.

Back to LinkedIn. The same commenter added:

“I can blame bad actors all I want but we as an industry need to fight back. I don’t mean go to Congress and give them the same old story and listen to the same old attorneys who have no incentive for comp bid to go away. We need more patient stories to tell!”

He’s not wrong. Patient stories matter a lot. Medicare beneficiaries carry real weight with CMS and Congress. When they speak up, especially in large numbers, people listen. And if another round of competitive bidding leads to reduced access to care and lower-quality equipment, beneficiaries will be upset. That’s not speculation; it’s on the record.

Now let’s come full circle to the role of industry media.

Here at HME News – just me and Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty, by the way – we don’t write for Medicare beneficiaries. Or CMS officials. Or members of Congress. (Though we hear they do read us.) We write for providers, vendors and manufacturers in the HME industry. Our job is to report what companies are doing, saying, planning and investing in.

So yes, we cover public companies. Because if AdaptHealth signs a five-year, $1 billion capitated agreement with a major insurer, or ResMed acquires VirtuOx, or Philips lifts its consent decree – that’s news. That affects your business. And we think you deserve to know.

It’s not our job to collect patient stories. It’s not even our job to publish them. But if the industry launches a campaign to gather and share those stories? That’s news. And we’ll be all over it.

As for the accusation that we “promote the wrong companies for ad revenue” – let me be clear: There’s no pay-to-play at HME News. We don’t trade coverage for advertising. In fact, some of the public companies we cover aren’t thrilled when we dig into their financials. That’s fine. We’re here to report.

I hope the industry collects and shares a zillion patient stories. I hope CMS and Congress listen. I hope it reshapes the bidding program – or ends it altogether. And whatever happens, we’ll be there, every step of the way, reporting on it. For the record.