The Biden administration extended the COVID-19 public health emergency through October. That’s good news for people who rely on home medical equipment like oxygen devices and ventilators. Because of the emergency, Medicare waived several cumbersome regulations governing homecare providers. The benefit has been improved access to medically necessary equipment and care for patients in their homes.

Most of these waivers were designed to help people avoid COVID. For example, Medicare in many cases removed the requirement that providers evaluate patients “face-to-face” before it would cover their home medical equipment.

Meanwhile, to make sure that there were enough homecare providers to meet seniors’ needs, Medicare temporarily boosted some reimbursement rates. That boost was a long time coming. The program’s rates are based on a seven-year-old formula that has strained the finances of homecare providers nationwide, causing over one in five Oregon durable medical equipment providers to close in the last nine years. Higher rates during the public health emergency have helped homecare providers withstand record inflation and supply shortages.

Taken together, these changes made it easier for millions of people to access home medical equipment during the pandemic. There’s no reason those benefits should stop after the public health emergency ends. Making pandemic-era flexibilities and reimbursement increases permanent would ensure that home medical equipment providers can stay in business — and meet this increasing demand for cost-effective, patient-preferred homecare.

Dan Vasilj

Vasilj is president and CEO of Performance Home Medical, which has locations in Portland, Springfield, Corvallis, Salem, and Coos Bay.