Tag: HHS

WASHINGTON - Liz Richter has been named acting administrator of CMS and Norris Cochran has been named acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Richter is an agency veteran who has worked at CMS since 1990, most recently as deputy center director for the Center for Medicare. She began in the Bureau of Policy Development working on inpatient hospital payment policy. She subsequently worked on a variety of Medicare payment issues. She has...

AMSTERDAM - Royal Philips announced Monday that it has received notice from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that its contract to deliver 43,000 bundled EV300 ventilator configurations through December 2020 has been partially terminated. Philips delivered 12,300 bundled vent configurations to the Strategic National Stockpile by the end of August, but it will no longer supply the remaining 30,700 Philips EV300 vents. “To date, we have delivered on our commitments to HHS,”...

KOKOMO, Ind. - General Motors and Ventec Life Systems delivered its 30,000th V+Pro critical care ventilator to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Aug. 31. The two companies completed the full federal order in just 154 days, completing one vent about every seven minutes. “Our drive to put critical care ventilators into production was fueled by thousands of people at GM, Ventec and our suppliers, who all wanted to do their part to help saves lives during the pandemic,”...

WASHINGTON - The Department of Health and Human Services has reopened applications for Medicare-based relief funding and extended the application deadline for Medicaid-based relief, according to AAHomecare. The news is especially welcome for providers that did not apply for the $20 billing Tranche 2 funding from the Medicare-based relief fund, the association says. “We heard from HME suppliers who were excluded from substantial Medicaid-based relief and reached out to HHS about this problem,”...

WASHINGTON - AAHomecare has kicked off a campaign to raise $250,000 in the next two years to develop and launch HME Audit Key, a tool to track audit activity. “This is a massive, long-term project that will benefit the entire industry and AAHomecare is committed to making sure it is provided with the resources it needs to succeed,” the association stated in a bulletin to members last week. Members of AAHomecare's executive committee and board of directors, along with The VGM Group and...

WASHINGTON - Kathleen Sebelius has resigned after serving five years as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.President Barack Obama is expected to nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to replace Sebelius, news organizations report.The Senate will have to confirm Burwell, who was approved by a 96-0 vote to take the helm at OMB last year.Should she be confirmed, Burwell will lead preparation for the next open-enrollment period for...

WASHINGTON - The Department of Health and Human Services has released data on the services physicians provide to Medicare beneficiaries and how much they are paid. In the release is data from more than 880,000 healthcare providers who received $77 billion in Medicare payments in 2012 under the Part B fee-for-service program, according to an April 9 release. “Data transparency is a key aspect of transformation of the healthcare delivery system,” said CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner....

WASHINGTON - AAHomecare has dropped its bid to stop competitive bidding in the courts.The association, along with Havre de Grace, Md.-based Home Mediservice, filed a lawsuit in June that argued CMS violated its own rules by awarding Round 2 contracts to providers that didn't meet licensure requirements.“Based on the signals that we've received from the court and the advice of legal counsel, it didn't appear that we would see any different outcome,” said Tom Ryan, president and CEO. “It...

WASHINGTON - In a June 21 letter to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Reps. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, call on the agency to investigate the possibility that CMS deliberately overlooked its own rules when awarding contracts for competitive bidding, according to a press release.The OIG is charged with identifying and combating waste, fraud and abuse in more than 300 programs, including Medicare.“We have asked the Inspector General to look into the shortfalls,...

The home medical equipment sector needs to be part of the accelerating national conversation about healthcare costs, outcomes and value. While HME has to stay engaged in immense challenges like the Medicare bidding program, the ongoing “auditgeddon” and regulatory hurdles, it ignores the larger value debates at its peril. Since the HME sector has the resources, intellectual and otherwise, to walk and chew gum at the same time, I don't know what's holding up progress on this big-picture...