Check out this video in which Senator Claire McCaskill proposes to save health care bucks by cutting back on Medicare provided wheelchairs.
This is certainly not a fresh idea. It’s been kicked around so many times that I thought it might be worn out by now. Yet it surfaces again as a top example of uber rationing and robbing Peter to pay Paul (redistribution of funds).
It’s robbing people of health care (yes, obtaining a wheelchair is health care) to supposedly fund other health care. Thank you but no thanks. That’s Russian Roulette. Come up with the wrong health care need and you lose.
Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Ziggi Landsman
VP of Assistive Technology
United Spinal Association
We are all for eliminating fraud and abuse but, let’s face it, we’re all living longer and incurring mobility impairments as we age. More of us will need powered, wheeled mobility aids. Whatever steps are taken should be directed at eliminating fraud, not just making it harder or impossible to obtain needed equipment.
I have heard the argument before about people getting motorized equipment from Medicare who don’t really need it. I think this “fraud” is miniscule. Who do you know that uses this equipment and doesn’t need it?
I certainly agree. It is also a matter of the standard you apply. Someone may need a wheelchair according to their doctor, their therapist, their family, but not according to Medicare’s bizarre standards. If the bizarre standards are somehow circumvented and the person gets the wheelchair, that’s considered fraud by Medicare.
Much of the Medicare fraud is based on the fact that someone who didn’t meet Medicare’s twisted standards received a wheelchair when in fact by clinical standards they may have very much needed the wheelchair. It’s a world where regulations and ethics have collided trapping wheelchair users and clinicians in the middle.
The point Senator Claire McCaskill is making is that the TV adds for scooters and power w/c are sometimes providing the wrong product for people that do not need the product, costing us all. People should use local providers and therapist that evaluate the need and fit the right products for the individual. Many companies on TV never see the client.