Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR) Act

The HPS Network joins with a coalition of other patient advocacy groups and interested professionals to support the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform Act or SOAR Act (S. 3821, H.R. 7821). The legislation would reform Medicare supplemental oxygen benefits to ensure Medicare beneficiaries continue to have real access to essential medical treatment. Although the bill does not address private insurers, it is common practice for private insurers to follow Medicare’s lead.

“This is important legislation for the Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome community because so many of us eventually require oxygen therapy. The system that provides oxygen in our country has been broken for years. It can leave patients unable to get what they need, and condemns many patients on oxygen being unable to participate in routine activities of daily living outside of their homes,” says Heather Kirkwood, Chairperson of the HPS Network’s Board of Directors and a patient who has used oxygen for more than eight years. 

The legislation would:

1. Ensure supplemental oxygen is patient-centric

• Change “home oxygen” to “supplemental oxygen” to ensure people requiring oxygen     can live full lives outside their primary residence
• Create a patients’ bill of rights to ensure care is focused on patient needs

2. Ensure access to liquid oxygen for patients for whom it is medically necessary

3. Create a statutory service element to provide adequate reimbursement for respiratory therapists to ensure patients have access to their expertise 

4. To ensure predictable and adequate reimbursement and to protect against fraud and abuse, establish national standardized documentation requirements that rely upon a template rather than prescriber medical records to support claims for supplemental oxygen suppliers.