Yesterday’s SGD Announcement:

Via ALS Advocacy Department

4 pm this afternoon, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services informed The ALS Association that it has instructed its contractors to rescind the "coverage reminder" that would prohibit people with ALS from unlocking Speech Generating Devices (SGDs) and accessing other technologies such as email and the internet. This is great news!! Thank you to everyone for their advocacy! Thank you also for your outreach to Capitol Hill which led 200 Members of Congress to sign the SGD Dear Colleague Letter. You have made a difference.

The agency intends to revise its current SGD coverage policy to recognize the advances in technology that have occurred since the policy was initially created in 2001.

While this is great news, there still is more work to do. We will provide more details in the coming days.

Thank you again!!

 

 

Alisa

 

Alisa Brownlee, ATP

Manager, Assistive Technology Services

ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) Association, National Office and Greater Philadelphia Chapter

 

Office line: 215-631-1877

Business Cell: 610-488-2988

 

Twitter: alsassistivetec

Facebook: Alisa Brownlee ALS