Colleagues:

We strongly urge you to take 5-10 minutes to complete a survey collecting data in response to changes in Medicare funding of SGDs.

You can find the survey at: http://tinyurl.com/l5jgavm

The deadline for our survey has been extended to Monday, April 28^th.   

We’ve gathered data on 181 adults who use SGDs.  Thank you to those who have already responded!  

These data will be critical to efforts to ensure that Medicare (and other funding sources who follow Medicare’s lead) does not lose sight of the needs of SGD users as they make changes to their funding policies.  We’d like to double our efforts to emphasize the impact in the field! 

Please share the survey with other SLPs who may wish to help.

Thanks for taking the time to help us advocate for adults with complex communication needs,

The 2014 Medicare Implementation Team

*The Medicare Implementation Team is a small group of clinicians, researchers, educators and advocates who helped Medicare staff between 1999 and 2001 to develop the current Medicare SGD coverage criteria and subsequently, to address other issues related to Medicare recipients’ access to SGDs. It was recently reconvened to help the field address changes to Medicare funding of SGDs.

Betts Peters, MA, CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist/Research Associate

Oregon Health & Science University

Institute on Development & Disability

503-494-2732