Home Oxygen Care Leaders Say President's Budget Will Lead to Significant Patient Service Disruptions, Call for Thoughtful Reforms as Opposed to Rep...(stronger funding for home health care wi...),Health

Date:2/4/2008

stronger funding for home health care with approximately four of five voters backing increased Medicare coverage for home medical equipment and healthcare services, including oxygen therapy. A vast majority of Americans surveyed, 82 percent, preferred receiving care at home as opposed to a hospital setting, as a way to remain independent and close to friends and family.

"President Bush's budget fails to adequately provide for more than one million Americans who rely on their Medicare home oxygen benefit for quality, cost-effective, continuous healthcare. It is difficult to imagine how we would accommodate patient needs with these newly proposed cuts, especially as we struggle to wholly grasp the depth of the unprecedented funding cuts already before us," added Kelly. "Balancing the federal budget at the expense of vulnerable patients is just bad policy. We encourage Congress to reject the Medicare savings currently found in the President's budget and create a budget that protects the critical care services of home oxygen Medicare beneficiaries nationwide."

Home oxygen therapy costs the Medicare program $7.62 per day versus as much as $4,600 per day in the hospital. In 2002, there were 673,000 hospitalizations for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with an average length of stay of 5.2 days. A recent government study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that long term use of home oxygen therapy reduces hospitalizations and, when hospitalizations do occur, reduces the length of hospital stay. The typical home oxygen Medicare beneficiary is female, suffers from COPD, is in her mid-70s, lives alone, and has physical limitations that prevent her from driving.

Nationwide, as many as 15 million Americans have been diagnosed with COPD. It is a slowly progressive, incurable disease that causes irreversible loss of lung function. Although existing medications have not proven beneficial in reversing its effects, home oxy
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SOURCE Council for Quality Respiratory Care Copyright©2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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