Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published Amy Merrick's article "Oxygen Rules Pinching Patients". This is the first story from a national publication which discusses the scenarios that providers have been warning legislators about for the last 12 months: extened hospital stays because patients were unable to get oxygen equipment and services and unemployment caused by the mass closings of providers in the aftermath of the mandatory accreditation and surety bond requirements.

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The recent mass closing of oxygen providers has caused Medicare to release a new policy addressing how patients can obtain oxygen equipment after their oxygen provider files for bankruptcy. However, the new policy would keep a patient waiting in a hospital for days while providers research court documents to find if the patient's previous company filed for bankruptcy and repossessed the patient's oxygen equipment. Then, if the oxygen provider can get the necessary court documents and is willing to go through the review process, they may choose to provide oxygen equipment so the patient can be discharged from physician care.

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