CRT Advocates Unite: Driving Policy Change Through Collaboration and Congressional Action

Published in Complex Rehab on July 29, 2025

Mandi Rodgers By Liz Beaulieu, originally featured in HME News.

WASHINGTON – NCART, NRRTS and U.S. Rehab are collaborating in a more official way on this year’s congressional fly-in on Sept. 16-17 in a move that will bring together complex rehab technology (CRT) professionals from different parts of the industry.

“It’s exciting,” said Andrea Madsen, executive director of NRRTS. “It’s the first year that the three organizations have been able to come together and work on this as a united front. It’s exciting for us to have the unique segments of our memberships there and collaborate to achieve our goals.

The fly-in will comprise of preparatory meetings and a dinner at the Hilton Garden Inn Arlington on the 16th and congressional visits on Capitol Hill on the 17th. The schedule, says Wayne Grau, executive director of NCART, allows attendees to maximize their time in Washington, D.C., and minimize their time out of office. “We wanted people to get home that night if they could,” he said.

Broad-based support from NCART, NRRTS, U.S. Rehab, Live at Home, and OPGA will be important as the industry tries to make headway on several of its priorities, like getting CMS to advance coverage for power standing devices and getting Congress to advance a bill that would improve access to high-tech ultralightweight manual wheelchairs.

“Every issue we’ll be talking about has an effect on our particular members,” Grau said. “It might be from a different perspective, but they affect everyone in our industry. We learned from our success getting coverage for power seat elevation that when you include everyone, including consumers, therapists, and academics, you have a chance to get some really good things done.”

With Congress recently making steep cuts to Medicaid, reimbursement relief will also be a priority, Grau says.

“For my members, that’s what I’m hearing is the biggest issue,” he said. “We’ll be in a good spot to talk about that.”

NCART, NRRTS, and U.S. Rehab also plan to host CRT Awareness Week the week of Aug. 18 to get people fired up to participate. The goal is to have as many attendees from as many states as possible, says Tyler Mahncke, senior vice president of clinical mobility and accessibility for VGM & Associates, who oversees U.S. Rehab and Live at Home, and OPGA.

“We want to make sure the whole country is covered,” he said. “The liaisons and staffers that we’ll be meeting with – it always hits home more and means more when it’s a constituent from their state.”

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