June 24, 2016 CRT Stakeholders and Friends, Late yesterday afternoon CMS finally released the July 1 Medicare DME Fee Schedules. A mere 5 business days before the reduced payment amounts go into effect! As feared, the payment reductions due to the full application of Competitive Bid Program information, including new data from the recent Round 2 Recompete, are major. Unfortunately HME legislation to delay these cuts was passed in the Senate on Tuesday, but a similar bill in the House that was scheduled for a vote Wednesday was never acted on due to the Congressional "sit-in" and the subsequent adjournment of the House until July 5. The related CMS Fact Sheet can be found here. Based on that document, the July 1 payment amount cuts (from 2015 payment amounts) for DME items include: Oxygen Concentrator 56% cut; Nebulizer 68% cut; Hospital Bed 55% cut; Walker 58% cut; Commode 56% cut; Standard Manual Wheelchair 60% cut; and Standard Power Wheelchair 53% cut. The detailed July 1 Fee Schedules can be found here. We are in the process of analyzing the July 1 payment cuts that apply to wheelchair accessories and will report that information as soon as our analysis is complete. These major reductions further underscore the need for us to push for passage of H.R. 3229 and S. 2196 this year to protect accessories used on complex rehab power and manual wheelchairs! More also to follow on that.