NAAOP February 2023 Update : Breece Fellowship & Medicare Definition of Orthotics

Breece Fellowship: NAAOP continues to accept applications for the Breece Fellowship, a paid, 10-week summer program based in Washington, D.C. designed to expose a consumer of O&P care to policy and advocacy. The fellow will learn about orthotic and prosthetic (O&P) policy, advocacy, and how NAAOP and other O&P organizations function on behalf of the O&P community and within the broader rehabilitation and disability policy and advocacy environment at the federal and state level. The fellowship also includes exposure to O&P clinical and business settings, and state-based public policy and advocacy. The deadline for applications is fast approaching and all interested individuals are encouraged to apply. Fellows will be selected for the summer of 2023 through a competitive process using the application available at www.naaop.org. If you know of a patient/consumer of O&P care whose career might be enhanced through this program or is otherwise interested, we ask you to share this opportunity with them. NAAOP thanks all of its members and friends for their support of the Breece Fellowship program. Breece Fellowship Application Deadline: Friday, February 28, 2023, 12:00 Midnight, ET. Applications must be submitted electronically to Fellowship@naaop.org. Fellowship Term: 10-weeks (Late May through Early August, 2023) Medicare Orthotics: Last month, NAAOP learned that CMS is expecting to issue a proposed regulation in June 2023 that will clarify the definition of “orthotics” under the Medicare program. This is a benefit category under the Medicare program that has been the subject of requests for coding and coverage of innovative technologies in recent years. NAAOP is very concerned that this proposed regulation may seek to limit the orthotics definition by restricting coverage of a new family of orthoses that, among other things, applies power across the joint of a limb. If CMS proposes this rule in the manner we expect, and finalizes the rule as written, Medicare beneficiaries may be restricted in their access to this important new generation of orthotic technologies. NAAOP will work to closely monitor this regulation and the entire orthotic benefit and alert the profession upon the regulation’s release. If need be, NAAOP will work with other O&P and rehabilitation partner organizations to oppose this regulation strongly.