At our business in rural Georgia, we have adopted multiple changes in the way we do business due to the recent Medicare reimbursement cuts.

We have stopped providing CPAP and oxygen for Medicare patients. We are looking at products like walkers, rollators, standard wheelchairs and beds as items we don’t take on Medicare assignment.

We know that these policies will hurt patients and keep them from getting needed equipment, but my business cannot absorb the lower-than-cost reimbursement and time and money required to deal with all the documents and audits. I have to care for my business and – more importantly – my employees.

 We are in a low population area (Medicare won’t let us call it rural, which it is), and there are few providers. Although I haven’t communicated with the other providers in our area, I hear stories from case managers and patients that products are getting more difficult to get for Medicare patients. 

We are focusing our efforts on other payers, and doing everything we can to reduce our Medicare business, because of the low and unfair reimbursement rates and the ridiculous documentation requirements. We know that this will lead to lower quality of care and increased hospital admissions. 

We have already laid off one-third of our staff and expect more to come as we decrease services to Medicare patients. We are confident we can grow our business, but only by decreasing our Medicare exposure. 

This is a very sad situation, as we have built our business on superior customer service, but now more and more we have to tell our customers we can’t help them. Our survival as a business depends on reducing work with Medicare. 

I have been in this business for 36 years, and it sickens me to see what Medicare is doing to elderly, sick patients who desperately need our help but can’t get it. I am disgusted with the way things are going with Medicare, and I can’t help patients get what they need, and still my door is open for business.

I expect things to get a lot worse for patients until Medicare finally sees the light. 

These cuts are the result of the government’s application of prices from their bidding program for home medical equipment used in major metro areas to rural communities nationwide. It’s foolish and short-sighted to expect that small providers who serve patients over a large geographic area can survive pricing that suppliers in big cities can offset because they increased volume as “winning” bidders who get to serve Medicare patients as non-winning bidders are excluded.

Congress left for a long recess before finishing work on this issue and I would hope – and pray – that they get something to the White House right away. There’s no time to waste.

Ed Cockman is the owner of Family Health Care, a medical equipment supplier in Valdosta.