Hospital leaders urge Congress to support unique needs of rural patients

Hospital leaders today urged the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens and support federal policies critical to maintaining access to care in rural communities. At the hearing, rural hospital leaders from Kansas and Nebraska urged Congress to support legislation to prevent the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from enforcing a Medicare condition of payment for critical access hospitals that requires a physician to certify that a beneficiary may reasonably be expected to be discharged or transferred to another hospital within 96 hours. They also urged Congress to provide relief from Medicare rules that require a physician or certain non-physician practitioners to provide direct supervision over numerous routine outpatient therapeutic services, and to adopt a default standard of “general supervision” and a process for making exceptions for complex or risky services. In a statement submitted to the committee, AHA echoed the hospital leaders’ concerns and also urged support for legislation to improve the Recovery Audit Contractor program and extend several important programs for rural hospitals. It also urged Congress to expand access to Medicare telehealth services.