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Medicare no longer requires you to reuse catheters
Submitted by art on Mon, 2008-09-29 07:49.
People using intermittent catheters no longer need to re-use their catheters due to a new Medicare policy effective April 1, 2008. The change affects nearly 1 million individuals living with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and spina bifida, as well as those who have other permanent conditions requiring bladder management or experience urinary incontinence or retention.
That sounds like great news.
That sounds like great news. I have heard plenty of opinions that requiring people to reuse catheters was a policy that made life unnecessarily difficult and unhealthy for lots of people. It's unfortunate that it took this long to change the policy, though.
NickfromAvvo
This policy change will make
This policy change will make a huge improvement in the lives of those of us with MS who rely upon ISC (intermittent self-catheterization) for our daily needs. UTIs (urinary tract infections) frequently lead directly to exacerbations. Prior to this change, Medicare covered only four catheters per month; approx. one per week. And that meant hand washing catheters between insertions. (You can do the math!) No matter how hygienic and vigilant one endeavored to be, this practice is no match for a fresh, sterile catheter for each insertion. Evidently, some kind bean counter ran a cost-benefit analysis and discovered that it is much cheaper to provide catheters than to pay for hospitalizations and subsequent complications.