Protect rural patients by supporting key amendments
Tomorrow the Senate Finance Committee will vote on critical rural amendments. The National Rural Health Association is asking members of Congress to protect rural patients’ and providers’ ability to receive and deliver health care by supporting the following amendments to the SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2013: Amendment 18 (Schumer/Grassley 1): This amendment would permanently extend in at current levels two crucial rural hospital payments, the Medicare Dependent Hospital program and Low Volume Hospital Adjustment. Amendment 82 (Grassley 13): This amendment would set a permanent floor on the work component of the Geographic Practice Cost Index (GPCI) at its current level of 1.0 creating a stable and more equitable reimbursement rate for rural physicians. Amendment 90 (Roberts/Enzi 2): This amendment would eliminate the discrepancy between Critical Access Hospitals’ conditions of participation and conditions of payment by removing the condition of payment requirement that a physician certify that each patient will be discharged or transferred in less than 96 hours. The condition of participation requiring CAHs to maintain a 96-hour annual average length of stay would remain. Amendment 117 (Thune/Bennet/Enzi/Roberts 1): This amendment would return supervision requirements for outpatient therapy services furnished at Critical Access Hospitals back to “general supervision”. This was the supervision level observed at nearly every CAH prior to 2009. Amendment 118 (Thune/Casey/Enzi Amendment 2): This amendment would establish demonstration project for telehealth remote patient monitoring services. This demonstration would help show the efficacy remote patient monitoring in keeping patients in their homes rather than in hospitals. Amendment 121 (Thune/Wyden/Roberts/Rockefeller/Enzi/Stabenow 5): This amendment would ensure that the new Alternative Payment Models do not interfere with or inhibit the development of telehealth technologies that are critical to the future of delivering care in rural America. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest information on these important amendments. Register today to join NRHA’s efforts to protect the rural health care safety net programs during NRHA’s 25th annual Rural Health Policy Institute Feb. 4-6 in D.C