ADA ACTION ALERT -Medicare for PRE-Diabetes

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ADA MEMBER ACTION ALERT

MNT for Pre-Diabetes

The American Dietetic Association Asks You to Contact Your U.S.

Representative and Senators in Support of Legislation That Will

Expand Medicare MNT to Cover Pre-diabetes

This month, nearly 500 members of ADA went to Capitol Hill as part of

the 2008 Public Policy Workshop to ask their senators and

representatives to expand Medical Nutrition Therapy coverage under

Medicare. While those messages are still fresh, ADA is asking

members to contact their senators and representative urging support

for legislation to give Medicare the authority to expand MNT beyond

just diabetes and renal diseases.

In August 2007, the House passed a bill - strongly supported by ADA -

that would designate MNT as one of several " preventive services "

covered by Medicare. As a preventive service, the co-payment for MNT

which beneficiaries must pay would be waived. In addition, Medicare

would be given the authority to expand the MNT benefit beyond

diabetes and renal diseases if Medicare determines that it is

reasonable and necessary for the prevention or early detection of an

illness or disability.

Members of the House of Representatives have made it clear that they

want the Senate to pass a Medicare bill and go to conference on the

bill that they passed in August. ADA is trying to build support for

including similar--if not the same--provisions, in the Senate version

of a Medicare bill. ADA is trying to build support in both the House

and Senate that the final version of the bill includes the MNT

preventive services language.

In order to build support for the House-passed MNT provisions, ADA

members who visited Capitol Hill asked their senators to co-sponsor

S. 1161, and for their representatives to co-sponsor H.R. 2805 and

H.R. 2922. While none of these bills are exactly what was in the

House-passed Medicare bill, they are similar. We have been told by

their sponsors that additional co-sponsors will help insure that the

final Medicare bill will include expansion of MNT.

ADA has drafted specific letters for the Senate and the House of

Representatives that can be personalized and sent to your senators

and representative urging support for broader MNT.

You can e-mail your senators and representative via ADA's Web site.

Go to www.eatright.Go to www.eatright.<WBR>org and log in as a mem

the Profession " page, click " Grassroots Manager " on the left hand

side. Once in " Grassroots Manager, " click " Take Action. " Then click

on the interactive page will translate your ADA member number into a

letter for your legislators, which you can edit to make it more

personal. You will be offered the choice of e-mailing the letter or

printing out a letter to fax. Please choose the e-mail option.

Note: Some Congressional offices have e-mail barriers that might

block your message. If that happens, you copy the message and paste

it into an e-mail from your personal account.

Jan Patenaude, RD, CLT

Consultant, Writer, Speaker

Director of Medical Nutrition

Signet Diagnostic Corporation

(Mountain Time)

(toll free)

Fax:

DineRight4@...

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