• Medicare coverage and reimbursement of products and services for sleep disordered breathing

Duration: January 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009

General Issues: Medicare/Medicaid

Spending: about $80,000 (But it's complicated. Here's why.)

It can be tricky to figure out how much an organization spent on a particular lobbying engagement. The law only requires lobbyists to report the amount they were paid for federal lobbying each quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000—and if it's less than $3,000 in a given quarter (or less than $13,000 for organizations with in-house lobbyists), they don't have to disclose it at all. Plus, some organizations include spending that doesn’t belong in the report—for instance, money spent lobbying state governments or other legal work.

Agencies lobbied since 2008: Agency for Health Care Policy & Research, Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)