Accreditation standards for negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) are critical to protecting patient safety as Medicare implements competitive bidding for this category of durable medical equipment.

You can make a difference for patients.

Write your Congressional representative. You’ll be in good company. The Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders, AAHomecare and AdvaMed have already requested that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) establish specific accreditation standards for all NPWT Part B suppliers participating in Medicare’s competitive bidding program.

Key Reasons to Support Quality Standards for NPWT Suppliers

• CMS does not have quality standards for NPWT suppliers, as it does for other categories such as Oxygen and Respiratory.
• Basic quality standards will ensure that only those providers qualified to furnish the range of services associated with the safe delivery of NPWT to home patients are eligible to provide these services to Medicare patients.
• The safe and effective use of these sophisticated therapeutic devices in the home requires a higher level of training and support than is required for simple functional equipment like crutches and walkers.
• NPWT products are used frequently to treat wounds occurring in highly compromised patients, failure of the products to work as intended can result in serious health consequences.

What happens if supplier accreditation is not required?

The CMS competitive bidding program will begin preparing for its rollout at the end of this year. The suppliers will be selected solely on price of the device.

Without basic quality standards for the suppliers of this therapy, you will only have access to the lowest cost device, at least during the next three years. This may discourage winning suppliers from investment in patient or clinician support, or ongoing technology enhancement.

Physician decision-making will be minimized, and you may not have access to the unit or dressing type your physician believes is optimal for wound healing.

What does this mean?

• Fewer Suppliers
• Cheapest Products
• Potential Decline in Service
• Potential for Less Training Support

How can you help?

Write your Congressional representative. You can find him/her by clicking this link (or here for the Senate).

In the Subject, please include: Please support NPWT supplier accreditation prior to bidding for Medicare contracts to ensure patient safety.

Please ensure you include your city and/or state with your name, so you will be recognized as a valuable voter asking for help to define a policy that will not threaten Medicare patients.