Gail,  Do you mean reimbursement for equipment or for "handling" during specific situations (eg, transport to physician office or treatment?)?  Are standards not incorporating a specific type of handling?  I'm not sure what type of policy is the focus of your question.

Gail, I believe a good area of concentration could be directed at CMS to update thinking related to reimbursement for safe patient handling equipment. I think currently only non-powered lifts and only partially powered beds are reimbursible , and this is only for homecare. Driveing change in this area would be very important. Again we need to encourage more intelligent spending on prevention rather than excessive spending on reaction. Could existing safe patient handling evidence packaged properly be used for this purpose? 

The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) has a guideline on this. www.aorn.og