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<BillSummaries>
<item congress="113" measure-type="hr" measure-number="1487" measure-id="id113hr1487" originChamber="HOUSE" orig-publish-date="2013-04-11" update-date="2013-04-30">
<title>Improved Health Care at Lower Cost Act of 2013</title>
<summary summary-id="id113hr1487v00" currentChamber="HOUSE" update-date="2013-04-30">
<action-date>2013-04-11</action-date>
<action-desc>Introduced in House</action-desc>
<summary-text><![CDATA[<p>Improved Health Care at Lower Cost Act of 2013 - Amends title XVIII (Medicare) and XI of the Social Security Act with respect to the prohibition against certain (potential financial conflict-of-interest) physician referrals.</p> <p>Excepts from the physician self-referral prohibition any monetary incentive payments made by hospitals to physicians under certain incentive payment programs designed to align incentives among hospitals and physicians (through techniques such as product standardization, the substitution of lower cost products, and care coordination initiatives that encourage medically appropriate decreases in length of stay) to improve efficiency and decrease costs while maintaining or improving quality.</p> <p>Exempts such monetary incentive payments (creates a safe harbor for them) from federal criminal antikickback and other sanctions.</p>]]></summary-text>
</summary>
</item>
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<dc:language>EN</dc:language>
<dc:rights>Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.</dc:rights>
<dc:contributor>Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress</dc:contributor>
<dc:description>This file contains bill summaries for federal legislation. A bill summary describes the most significant provisions of a piece of legislation and details the effects the legislative text may have on current law and federal programs. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. As stated in Public Law 91-510 (2 USC 166 (d)(6)), one of the duties of CRS is "to prepare summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of a public general nature introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives". For more information, refer to the User Guide that accompanies this file.</dc:description>
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