There is an upcoming Regional SBA Hearing being held in Seattle, WA on June 6th titled “Regulatory Fairness Hearing for Small Business.” AOPA will be testifying on behalf of our members on the RAC and Pre-payment audit practices jeopardizing the economic viability of our members.
This hearing is being held by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of the National Ombudsman. The National Ombudsman assists small businesses with unfair and excessive regulatory enforcement by federal agencies including repetitive audits or investigations, excessive fines, penalties, retaliation or other unfair regulatory enforcement actions. The National Ombudsman acts as a “troubleshooter” between small businesses and federal agencies by receiving comments and complaints from small businesses and then directed those comments and complaints to the appropriate federal agency for a high-level review.
The hearing is designed to provide small business owners, community and business leaders with an opportunity to discuss issues regarding Federal Regulatory Compliance and enforcement. While this hearing is one of the regularly held hearings mandated by the law that set up the Regulatory Fairness Office and is designed as a general session for all kinds of small business government abuse issues, we plan to use this opportunity to voice concerns about the CMS regulatory issues plaguing O&P small businesses.
The SBA will also be holding another Regulatory Fairness Hearing on June 21, 2013 in Davenport, Iowa from 8:30 am- 11:30 am.
For additional information on the hearing and the SBA’s role in this process view: