In April of this year, the APTA hel...

In April of this year, the APTA held its annual Federal regulation Affairs Forum in Washington DC Approximately 150 physical therapists representing each state visited the offices of their legislative delegations. As your liaison for the Cardiopulmonary Section, my report will provide a summary of the major issues and goad you to act NOW!!!! Our profession privations YOU to contact your legislators particularly concerning the following bills:

1 Repeal of the $1500 Cap- The moratorium onward the cap will expire at the [i]finale[/i] of the year. S.1394/HR.3834 bills address the repeal of the cap. Information and sample epistles are available at: http://www.apta.org/Govt Affairs

Key issues to address in your contacts are:

a) The $1500 Cap limits access for those patients who ne services the principally

b) Physical Therapy/Speech Therapy services are the single services that have an arbitrarily imposed cap.

c) below the moratorium, only 12% of therapy clients would have surpassed the cap, but these patients were those who had the chiefly significant needs for therapy.

Following our visit to Capitol Hill, we picked up 8 of the present day co-sponsors and since then, an additional number of sponsors appropriate to our efforts. We ne to continue to gain Capitol Hill support. This is a consummate time for you to call, email, or send forth a letter to your legislators!!! They should be well informed forward the bill.

2. Direct Access to Physical Therapists for Medicare HR 3363/ 2386

Key points:

a) Eliminates the cargo of unnecessary visits to physicians to access PT

b) Does not stir up overutilization

c) PTs are well qualified to provide these services since 34 states have more [i]or[/i] less form of direct access.

d) There has been no increase in liability claims in those states with direct access.

We are facing opposition from near physician groups. In our visits, we quickly learned that there were misunderstandings. about of the legislative aides indicated they were not aware that PT already have direct access in in such a manner many states. If state law allows for direct access, then wherefore should a federal agency disavow payment? As a group, we left parts of information in the legislative offices. Please help us by the agency of following up in your state with additional input. papal court the APTA web site for easy access information.

The AACVPR, which includes Physical Therapists upon their Board has been working forward a number of reimbursement issues. These issues include:

Physician Supervision for rehabilitation programs, (the basis for coverage and payment of cardiac rehabilitation services) and audits of rehabilitation programs by the agency of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to measure compliance with physician supervision requirements. The AACVPR has had an ongoing dialogue with OIG urging them to hold an open mind regarding the way it configurations compliance reviews.

In addition, Congres has directed the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC) to inquiry various coverage issues related to the two cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation. MEDPAC was charged with examining the appropriate qualifying diagnoses for each therapy, the on a level of necessary physician involvement, and the appropriate flushs of reimbursement for each.

The pulmonary rehab G digests (60237, G0238, G0239) went into tenor 4/1/2002. The G codes were published in the Federal Register upon Thursday November 1, 2001.

For further detailed information forward any of the topics provided in this report please contact Cathy Certo via e-mail at certo@mail.hartford.edu.

Respectively submitted, Cathy Certo, PT SCD

Copyright Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy Journal Sep 2002

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