AAHomecare Is A Bargain
Thank you for recognizing the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare), industry leaders, and consumers who carried the message to Capitol Hill at our Legislative Conference [in “Here We Go Again,” July 2002]. We are expanding our community with the recent formation of CAMSET (Coalition for Access to Medical Services, Equipment, and Technology), which includes consumer, provider, and manufacturing groups.

You are right; we do need more people contributing more time and money to the effort because physicians and hospitals are getting their Medicare spending protected. AAHomecare is doing an amazing job with precious few resources, from facilitating grassroots lobbying of its own members, to professional lobby work “inside the Beltway.”

You are wrong about dues being steep—they are a bargain. We have several large industry members spending far more than just their “large” dues for lobby efforts inside and outside of AAHomecare. Why? Because they recognize the effectiveness of AAHomecare’s united voice and that the survival of their business depends on Congress clearly understanding the bargain that home care is in the Medicare system.

If we do not expose the absurd cost savings formula that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) used to score competitive bidding, and stop the funding of bigger and bigger government to administer competitive bidding, competitive bidding will threaten good patient care. Some losing bidders will lose their small businesses completely because they cannot bill Medicare anymore.

AAHomecare dues are a bargain. A bargain every home care provider and supplier should buy. Join AAHomecare today while we still have time to get our message heard.

—Steven J. Knoll
Chairman of AAHomecare
President of Knoll Patient Supply Inc
Topeka, Kan

Hear, hear! To contact AAHomecare for information about joining, call (703) 836-6263, visit www.aahomecare.org, or email info@aahomecare.org.
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JCAHO Violation On Cover?
The picture on the cover of the July 2002 issue has a lot of detail. I congratulate Mt Carmel Medical Equipment on surviving Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) accreditation, but is that cylinder in the front row without a seal, empty?

—Jammie Smith
Taylor Home Health
Broussard, La

I was concerned about the photograph, too. True JCAHO followers would quickly notice the small errors in the picture. I remember mentioning this to the photographer, but we were pressed for time and I thought that people in our industry would understand that the picture was “staged.” We drove over to the warehouse where our oxygen supplier transfills tanks. This was not our warehouse. I simply wanted to be surrounded by a sea of tanks, and knew that we could do that quickly at our oxygen supplier’s warehouse. While we were moving the tanks around, one of the tank’s filled band came off. We left it where it was, but after the shoot, we moved it to the empty tanks stack. Others have noticed that the E cylinder tanks behind me are not secured—a JCAHO no, no—and that the large K cylinders are not secured. People have also noticed that the row of tanks sitting up in the basket behind me is not secured properly.

Needless to say, we try our best to keep these problems from happening here in our office.

—Gary L. Miller
Mt Carmel Medical Equipment
Pittsburg, Kan

Eagle Eyes
Where was the wound care article promoted on the May cover? I couldn’t find it anywhere in the issue.

—Vicki-Ann Bush
Operations Manager of Nevada
King Medical Supply
Henderson, Nev

The article was held 2 days before we went to press to make room for late-breaking news. We removed it from the table of contents, but did not catch that it was also on the cover. Please look for it on page 42 of this issue.
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Please send letters to Editor, Home Health Care Dealer/Provider, 6701 Center Drive West, Suite 450, Los Angeles, CA 90045, or email llindahl@medpubs.com.