FAIR DME Appeals Act

Key Points

• This bill requires Medicare contractors to pay the legal fees and court costs for small businesses that sell medical equipment, like wheelchairs or oxygen tanks, if their payment claims were wrongly denied.
• To get the money, a small business must win its appeal and a judge must rule that the original denial was a clear mistake or ignored the law. The payments would cover every stage of the legal fight.
• The goal is to protect small medical suppliers from going broke while fighting long legal battles against big government contractors who make errors. Currently, these businesses often have to pay their own way even when they win.
• Contractors would have to pay these costs out of their own pockets. The federal government would be banned from using taxpayer money to pay the contractors back for these specific legal expenses.
• The rule would not apply if the business made a mistake, such as forgetting to send in paperwork or failing to follow billing rules. It also would not apply if the law changed while the appeal was happening.

Impact Analysis

Govbase has not yet run an impact analysis on this legislation.