Supporting Access to Rural Community Hospitals Act of 2025

Bill: 119-s-521
Sponsor: full_name: Sen. Fischer, Deb [R-NE]
Introduced: 2025-02-11
Policy area: Health
Subjects: Health care coverage and access

Hospital care

Medicare

Rural conditions and development
Latest action: action_date: 2025-02-11
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

Summaries:
action_date: 2025-02-11
action_desc: Introduced in Senate
text: <p><strong>Supporting Access to Rural Community Hospitals Act of 2025</strong></p><p>This bill temporarily allows additional hospitals to qualify as critical access hospitals (CAHs) that receive special payment under Medicare.</p><p>Currently, in order to qualify as a CAH under Medicare, a hospital must either (1) be located more than 35 miles (or 15 miles in mountainous regions or areas with only secondary roads) from another hospital, or (2) have been certified prior to January 1, 2006, by the state as a necessary provider of services in the area. Hospitals also must meet certain size and service requirements, including having no more than 25 acute care inpatient beds.</p><p>The bill allows, for one year, hospitals that are participating in the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program to also qualify as CAHs. (The program tests the feasibility&nbsp;of cost-based reimbursement for small rural hospitals that are too large to qualify as CAHs.)</p>

tv_txt: II 119th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 521 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES February 11, 2025 Mrs. Fischer 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 waive certain distance requirements for certain hospitals electing to be designated as critical access hospitals.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Supporting Access to Rural Community Hospitals Act of 2025 . 2. Waiving certain distance requirements for certain hospitals electing to be designated as critical access hospitals (a) In general Section 1820(c)(2)(B)(i) of the Social Security Act ( 42 U.S.C. 1395i–4(c)(2)(B)(i) ) is amended— (1) in subclause (I), by striking or at the end; (2) in subclause (II), by adding or at the end; and (3) by adding at the end the following new subclause: (III) with respect to designations occurring during the 1-year period beginning on the date that is 6 months after the date of the enactment of this subclause, is a rural community hospital (as defined in subsection (f) of section 410A of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003) that was participating in the demonstration program established under such section as of such date of enactment. . (b) Conforming amendments Section 410A(f)(1)(A)(iv) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 ( 42 U.S.C. 1395ww note) is amended by striking is not and all that follows through the period and inserting is not a critical access hospital (as defined in section 1861(mm)(1) of the Social Security Act). .