Recent measures to reduce Medicare spending include the use of competitive bidding in determining reimbursement prices. Several competitive bidding experiments have been conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to determine reimbursement prices. This paper investigates the use of competitive bidding to set reimbursement prices for durable medical equipment, prosthetics,...

1 Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics, Associate Director of Rehabilitation, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Fla. 33152. 2 Director, Prosthetic-Orthotic Center, Northwestern University Medical Center, Chicago, Ill. 60611. 3 Orthotic Division, Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, Ind. 46207. There is liittle question that the field of orthotics has taken a back seat to...

This rule updates and makes revisions to the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) prospective payment system (PPS) for calendar year (CY) 2014. This rule also sets forth requirements for the ESRD quality incentive program (QIP), including for payment year (PY) 2016 and beyond. In addition, this rule clarifies the grandfathering provision related to the 3-year minimum lifetime requirement (MLR) for Du...

Michelle M. Lusardi, PhD, PT Pamela K. Levangie, DSc, PT Beverly D. Fein, MS, PT Given the complexity and the pace of today's health care environment, educators of health professionals are increasingly challenged to insure that graduates of entry-level programs have requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes for competent patient care, as well as the capability of adapting to change, generating...

Author details Centre for Care Research Western Norway, Bergen University College, P.O Box 7030, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Department of Nursing, Bergen University College, P.O Box 7030, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Departement of Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Radiography, Bergen University College, P.O Box 7030, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Haraldsplass Deaconess University College, Ulriksdal 10, 5009 Be...

A small and lightweight signal conditioning unit for use with strain-gage transducers is described. The unit provides bridge-balancing, amplification, and filtering for three channels of Wheatstone bridge circuits. The electronics are housed with a 4.5 cm x 3.0 cm x 2.5 cm box that allows connection to a transducer and to a cable that extends to power supplies and a data storage facility. Evalu...

BACKGROUND The design and performance of a new development prosthesis system known as biomechatronics wrist prosthesis is presented in this paper. The prosthesis system was implemented by replacing the Bowden tension cable of body powered prosthesis system using two ultrasonic sensors, two servo motors and microcontroller inside the prosthesis hand for transradial user. METHODS The system com...

Prosthetics and orthotics research, studies, technologies have been evolving through the years. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, it is estimated that, globally, 35–40 million people require prosthetics usage in daily life. demand increasing due certain factors. One of factors vascular-related disease, which leads amputation. Prosthetic can increase an amputee’s quality Therefo...