[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             MEDICARE BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Williams) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, last week, a news report revealed that a 
hospital in Houston, Texas, my home State, was unable to pay dozens of 
its employees during the holidays due to a new Medicare payment 
contractor. Nearly 150 employees, ranging from doctors to nurses to 
administrators, missed several paychecks because the hospital's 
Medicare payment facilitator is taking too long to process Medicare 
claims for reimbursement.
  Unfortunately, this is a growing problem plaguing the medical 
facilities and hardworking employees across the country. That is why my 
bill, the Medicare Established Provider Act, should come to the House 
floor for a vote quickly.
  H.R. 3168 will help alleviate the reimbursement backlog by creating a 
trusted provider system. Like this hospital in Texas, there are many 
established Medicare providers with a proven history of timely, valid 
claims. They should be rewarded with prompt reimbursements rather than 
put in limbo for months or years at a time.
  Allowing this bill to pass would allow companies and small businesses 
to expand and would streamline the process for these trusted providers. 
As the backlog of claims continues to rise, the livelihood of employees 
and businesses should not be put at risk. I hope this bill will get 
serious attention and bring commonsense business principles to this 
industry.
  In God we always trust.

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