117 HR 6400 IH: Save America’s Rural Hospitals Act U.S. House of Representatives 2022-01-13 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.

I117th CONGRESS2d SessionH. R. 6400IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESJanuary 13, 2022Mr. Graves of Missouri (for himself and Mr. Huffman) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concernedA BILLTo amend titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act to provide for enhanced payments to rural health care providers under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title; table of contents

(a)

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Save America’s Rural Hospitals Act.(b)

Findings

Congress finds the following: (1)More than 60,000,000 individuals in rural areas of the United States rely on rural hospitals and other providers as critical access points to health care.(2)Access to health care is essential to communities that Americans living in rural areas call home.(3)Americans living in rural areas are older, poorer, and sicker than Americans living in urban areas.(4)Between January 2010 and January 1, 2021, 137 rural hospitals closed in the United States, according to the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and the rate of these closures is increasing.(5)Four hundred and fifty-three hospitals are operating at margins similar to those that have closed over the past decade. Of those, 216 are considered most vulnerable to closure.(6)Rural Medicare beneficiaries already face a number of challenges when trying to access health care services close to home, including the weather, geography, and cultural, social, and language barriers.(7)Approximately sixty percent of all primary care health professional shortage areas are located in rural areas.(8)Seniors living in rural areas are forced to travel significant distances for care.(9)On average, trauma victims in rural areas must travel twice as far as victims in urban areas to the closest hospital, and, as a result, 60 percent of trauma deaths occur in rural areas, even though only 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas.(10)With the 453 hospitals on the brink of closure, millions of Americans living in rural areas are on the brink of losing access to the closest emergency room.(c)

Table of contents

The table of contents of this Act is as follows:Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.Title I—Rural provider payment stabilizationSubtitle A—Rural hospitalsSec. 101. Eliminating Medicare sequestration for rural hospitals.Sec. 102. Reversing cuts to reimbursement of bad debt for critical access hospitals (CAHs) and rural hospitals.Sec. 103. Extending payment levels for low-volume hospitals and Medicare-dependent hospitals (MDHs).Sec. 104. Reinstating revised diagnosis-related group payments for MDHs and sole community hospitals (SCHs).Sec. 105. Reinstating hold harmless treatment for hospital outpatient services for SCHs.Subtitle B—Other rural providersSec. 111. Making permanent increased Medicare payments for ground ambulance services in rural areas.Sec. 112. Extending Medicaid primary care payments.Sec. 113. Making permanent Medicare telehealth service enhancements for federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics.Sec. 114. Creation of reporting requirements for provider-based rural health clinics.Title II—Rural Medicare beneficiary equitySec. 201. Equalizing beneficiary copayments for services furnished by CAHs.Title III—Regulatory reliefSec. 301. Eliminating 96-hour physician certification requirement with respect to inpatient CAH services.Sec. 302. Rebasing supervision requirements.Sec. 303. Reforming practices of recovery audit contractors under Medicare.Title IV—Future of rural health careSec. 401. Medicare rural hospital flexibility program grants.