This August, AAHomecare surveyed the industry to get an understanding of the real-world impact of the Round 2021 (RID) Competitive Bidding Program.
Unfortunately, the results confirmed some fearful speculations. According to AAHomecare, “the program threatens patient access on a national scale…. approximately 3,650 suppliers would be impacted by the RID CBP.”
Key findings from the August AAHomecare survey include:
- Workforce reductions. 50% would lay off employees; more than one in three said they would eliminate at least half of their current workforce.
- Business viability risk. 47% anticipate significant risk to business viability, closing one or more locations, facing a high risk of going out of business, and/or closing entirely. Extrapolated across the 3,650 impacted suppliers, more than 1,700 DMEPOS companies would face significant viability risk.
- Product category exits. 53% would exit one or more affected product categories, reducing supplier availability nationwide.
- Reduced service areas. 45% would reduce operations or shrink their service area, limiting geographic access to products and services, particularly in rural and underserved communities.
- Impact beyond Medicare. 71% report that the loss of Medicare revenue would also affect their ability to sustainably serve patients covered by other payers, showing the impact would extend well beyond Medicare FFS.
We wait alongside the industry to see what happens next.
What Can DME/ HME Providers Do Right Now?
- Assess your exposure. Identify product lines, locations, and revenue streams most at risk.
- Model the impact. Understand what reduced Medicare revenue could mean for your business.
- Cut unnecessary overhead. Look for repetitive administrative work that can be streamlined or automated.
- Maximize your existing team. Use DME order automation to increase capacity without relying solely on additional hiring to scale and keep up with demand.
- Find your bottlenecks. Identify where manual work is slowing orders, billing, resupply, or reimbursement. Use tools like FlowMap to uncover your inefficiencies.
- Prepare now. Strengthen operational efficiency before changes to competitive bidding take effect however you can.
The goal: Build a leaner, more resilient operation that can adapt - whatever happens next.
