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Medicare Coverage
Guidelines
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| |
| 1. The patient must have severe arthritis
of the hip or knee or have a severe neuromuscular disease. |
| 2. The seat lift mechanism must be a
part of the physician's course of treatment and be prescribed
to effect improvement, or arrest
or retard deterioration in the patient's condition. |
|
3. The patient must be
completely incapable of standing up from any chair in
his/her home. (The fact that a patient has difficulty
or is even incapable of getting up from a chair, particularly
a low chair, is not sufficient justification for a seat
lift mechanism.
Almost all patients who are capable of ambulating
can get out of a ordinary chair if the seat height is
appropriate and the chair
has arms.)
|
| 4. Once standing, the patient must have
the ability to ambulate. |
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|
All appropriate therapeutic
modalities (e.g. medication, physical therapy) have
been tried and failed to enable the patient to transfer
from a chair to a standing position.
|
| |
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Condensed coverage
guidelines Region C DMEPOS Supplier Manual (Winter
2000)
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| |
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1. A wheelchair
is contraindicated under Medicare policy.
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