Dear Affiliate Colleagues,

Clearly, pulmonary programs have a greater "immediate" threat to their continued existence based on Medicare's refusal to publish an NCD (National Coverage Determination) for Pulmonary Rehabilitation. However, as our lobbyist (Phil Porte) said, "numbers" can make a real difference in this effort for inclusion of S 329. I would thus urge everyone (i.e. cardiac & pulmonary programs) to communicate with Senator(s) ______________ as our legislation is not divided in parts and covers both Cardiac & Pulmonary rehabilitation services.

To include S 329 in forthcoming Medicare legislation, we require the key support of Senators Grassley (R-IA), Baucus (D-MT) and Rockefeller (D-WV) in the Senate Finance Committee. To gain their support, our Senators who are already cosponsors of S 329 will need to URGE Senators Baucus & Rockefeller (if Democrat) or Senator Grassley (if Republican) to include S 329 as they confer with their House counterparts in the next few weeks. Unless large "numbers" of our clinicians and patients make themselves heard, Senator's Dodd & Lieberman will not feel the need to "get involved". In short, ALL Cardiac & Pulmonary participants need to make themselves heard NOW!!!!

Additional language that could be used by Cardiac Rehab folks when communicating with their senators might include ......

S 329 would remove Cardiac Rehabilitation from the confusing regulatory environment of “incident to” services and clearly create it as a specific Medicare benefit with specific physician involvement delineated.

Cardiac disease costs Americans billions of dollars a year. It would be a tragedy for Cardiac Rehabilitation, which keeps patients from recurring problems and hospitalizations, to not to be available for everyone who needs it. Clarifying the status of Cardiac Rehab in the Medicare statute would help prevent such problems.