The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that they rescinded the “coverage reminder” that was issued last February that would have prohibited Medicare from covering SGDs that included functions such as email and internet access. While this is an important victory, we have more work to do. That’s because Medicare is in the process of revising their SGD coverage policy, known as a National Coverage Determination (NCD), and we need to make sure that the final policy enables people with ALS to access the SGDs they need, including devices that have email, internet access and environmental controls. We also need to make sure that the policy covers technologies such as eye tracking, which people need in order to access SGDs when they have limited or no mobility in their arms and hands.
