SMART Act 2021-10-08 Introduced in House Stabilizing Medicare Access to Rehabilitation and Therapy Act or the SMART Act

This bill modifies the application of a certain Medicare payment methodology for outpatient physical therapy services and outpatient occupational therapy services that are furnished by a therapy assistant.

Under current law, effective January 1, 2022, payment for such services is 85% of the otherwise applicable rate. The bill delays this effective date by one year and excludes services that are furnished in rural or medically underserved areas from this payment methodology.

The bill also specifies that supervision requirements for outpatient physical therapy services that are furnished through private practice may not be more stringent for purposes of Medicare coverage than under state law.

]]> text/xml EN 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. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress 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.