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House Reveals SGR Bill; Rural Medicare Extenders Included
By
Maggie Elehwany
posted
03-24-2015 12:15 PM
0
Recommend
Today, the House of Representatives
unveiled
a
bill
to
permanently
fix the Sustainable Growth Rate. Included in the legislation is a two-year extension of each of the current "Rural Medicare extenders" as well as a two-year
renewal
of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Two imperative rural PPS
hospital
provisions, the Medicare Dependent
Hospital
and the Low-Volume
Hospitals
Adjustment, are included in the legislation. Additionally, rural
ambulance
payments,
rural
home
health
add-on payments and the physician payment known as the
Geographic
Practice Cost Index are also included and extended for two years.
It is unclear if Congress will be able to pass permanent legislation to fix the SGR (the controversial price tag and lack of pay-fors for a
significant
portion
of the bill remain), let alone
complete
the Herculean
task
by the March 31st deadline when both the SGR and rural Medicare Extenders current payment provisions expire.
What may likely happen is yet another short-term extension to buy Congress some time until after the Spring recess when debate could resume.
Nevertheless, things are definitely on the right track, and it's a huge victory for rural to get these critical
payments
extended for two years.
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