power wheelchairs, etc....Fort Myers News Press

[Guest guest]

Messed-up regulations

This upcoming election is without doubt the most important election of our life.

The current administration is not only destroying Medicare but is also

destroying America.

I live my life in a wheelchair. The following rules now apply to these power

wheelchairs:

Previously, users of these wheelchairs got them free of charge; after they paid

Medicare small co-pay, they owned them outright.

But beginning this month, Medicare requires equipment providers to essentially

rent the wheelchairs to patients over a 13-month period.

At the end of that time, if a patient still meets the requirements for needing

and using the chair, he or she can keep the equipment with Medicare paying most

of the maintenance costs.

But if sometime during that 13-month period, the Medicare recipient is confined

to a nursing home or moves in with relative or otherwise switches residences, he

will probably lose the chair because the provider is required to repossess it.

If the chair is repossessed, the user must reapply (an arduous process) to get

another chair.

The American Association for Homecare argues that these new Medicare rules defy

common sense and make it difficult for suppliers to offer power wheelchairs at

Medicare-approved rates.

The chairs have to be especially modified to meet the needs of an individual

user, so the idea that they can be repossessed and then reused by somebody else

is very impractical.

These self-serving politicians are decimating the fabric of our country.

Please vote out these incompetent people, in only for themselves.

Bayuk, North Fort Myers