FRO M T H E N RRTS OF F IC E: A LOO K BACK
GET VOCAL AND TAKE ACTION! Written by: GERRY DICKERSON, ATP, CRTS ®
It’s hard to believe that 2022 is right around the corner. It’s even harder to believe that COVID-19 still dominates the news cycle and our lives. As mentioned in my last President’s Message, my messages, going forward, will be a look back over the last 30 years. NRRTS News (the predecessor to DIRECTIONS) from the fall of 2003 continues to provide great memories and eye-opening commentary. The reprint below, written by the great Van G. Miller, could be written today, let alone 18 years ago. Miller passed away on October 18, 2015. A visionary,
GUEST EDITORIAL: GET VOCAL AND TAKE ACTION! (REPRINTED FROM NRRTS NEWS, VOLUME 4, FALL 2003) Once again, the rehab community, and by extension the entire HME industry, is under attack. I’m referring to Operation Wheeler Dealer, which I believe represents administrative negligence and sheer gall on the part of CMS. Unless something has changed dramatically by the time this is published, CMS is applying numerous “corrective measures” to rehab and HME suppliers. Never mind it was rehab suppliers who spoke out in the first place and informed CMS that Medicare was being abused by unscrupulous suppliers. At VGM, U.S. Rehab’s parent company, we went so far as to discuss it last winter with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa). What concerns me is the overwhelming majority of rehab suppliers have done nothing wrong. CMS just noticed what everyone else in the industry knew was happening for at least two years: intense and unethical marketing, questionable interpretations of Medicare laws and outright fraud were driving mobility sales through the roof.
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advocate and founder of Van G. Miller in Waterloo, Iowa, Miller was a true champion of our profession. Many of us at NRRTS had the great honor and pleasure of knowing Miller and calling him a friend. His thoughtful passion is evident in the Guest Editorial below. The more things change, the more they stay the same. On behalf of myself, the NRRTS Board of Directors and the evercapable NRRTS staff, whatever you celebrate at this time of year, may you do it with those you love the most. To a safe, healthy and prosperous 2022. Geez, 2022!!! I still can’t wrap my head around that!
GET MAD AND GET VOCAL – OR LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. A 189 percent increase in overall power chair sales between 1999 and 2002 should have been noticeable to someone at CMS. How about a 1,000 percent increase in one year in one Texas County? In that same county, one doctor signed more than 25,000 certificates of medical necessity for power wheelchairs. Don’t we pay for government data analysts and computers? CMS’s chief honcho Tom Scully said, “This abuse is an insult to all Americans who pay taxes.” I believe it would have been appropriate if he had added “CMS’s continuing negligence and inaction are an unforgivable insult to all taxpayers, beneficiaries and suppliers, I have terminated the employees responsible and am immediately submitting my own resignation.” Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was right when he said “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years, there would be a shortage of sand.” One supplier called us at U.S. Rehab and related he thought this latest crisis was a “sad” situation. We disagree. It is more than “sad.” It is a travesty compounded by CMS, the OIG and congressional stalwarts to blame it all on the supplier community.
