The National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics released a webcast statement in support of the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association’s recently filed lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and the Department of Health and Human Services.
In the statement, Peter W. Thomas, JD, general counsel for the NAAOP, said the NAAOP supports the lawsuit and believes AOPA was justified in its allegations that CMS has violated the law in relation to physician documentation regulations.
“The O&P physician documentation issue has led to numerous audits across the country, tremendous turmoil across the O&P field and O&P clinicians being devalued in terms of the documentation for the services they provide to Medicare beneficiaries.” Thomas stated in the release. “And in the end, it’s caused tremendous business problems and cash flow problems for O&P providers and problems in access to care for patients. This has reached a breaking point, and ultimately, we believe AOPA had no choice but to sue the federal government and NAAOP has little choice but to support the suit.”
Thomas added that because NAAOP is not a party to the lawsuit, it can and will continue to communicate with CMS in an attempt to resolve these issues.
