[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4083 Introduced in Senate (IS)]








109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4083

To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require reporting of 
  quality measures by hospitals in order to reduce medication errors.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            December 6, 2006

  Mr. Lugar (for himself and Mr. Bayh) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require reporting of 
  quality measures by hospitals in order to reduce medication errors.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Hospital Quality Reporting 
Improvement Act of 2006''.

SEC. 2. REPORTING OF QUALITY MEASURES BY HOSPITALS IN ORDER TO REDUCE 
              MEDICATION ERRORS.

    Section 1886(b)(3)(B) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 
1395ww(b)(3)(B)), as amended by section 5001(a) of the Deficit 
Reduction Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-171), is amended--
            (1) by moving clause (viii) (including subclauses (I) 
        through (VII) of such clause) 6 ems to the left; and
            (2) in clause (viii)--
                    (A) by redesignating subclauses (VI) and (VII) as 
                subclauses (VII) and (VIII), respectively; and
                    (B) by inserting after subclause (V) the following 
                new subclause:
    ``(VI) Effective for payments beginning with fiscal year 2009, in 
expanding the number of measures under subclause (III), the Secretary 
shall adopt consensus-based measures designed to reduce the likelihood 
of hospital medication errors. The Secretary shall adopt measures under 
this subclause that have been approved by national organizations with 
expertise in health care quality. In adopting the measures, the 
Secretary--
            ``(aa) shall recognize a range of measures available to 
        hospitals, including those that do not require a significant 
        short-term investment in technology-based systems; and
            ``(bb) may take the cost of complying with those measures 
        into account for hospitals located in rural areas and small 
        community hospitals (as determined by the Secretary).''.
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