• Medicare durable medical equipment (DME) competitive bidding; Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA), HR 6331; Medicare Would Therapy Patient Protection Act, HR 4935, S 3091.

Duration: January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008

General Issues: Medicare/Medicaid, Health Issues, Medical/Disease Research/Clinical Labs, Copyright/Patent/Trademark, Manufacturing, Accounting, Insurance

Spending: about $350,000 (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: House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health & Human Services - Dept of (HHS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), White House Office