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Medicare
Ambulance Payment Reform and Rural Equity Act
(S.
1109, H.R. 2014)
Bob
Garner
AAA President
Please
write your members of Congress and ask them
to cosponsor the Medicare
Ambulance Payment Reform and Rural Equity Act (S. 1109,
H.R. 2014). To write your members of Congress, just CLICK
HERE or access the AAA website homepage at www.the-aaa.org
and click on “Write to Congress” in the “On Capitol Hill”
section. Draft letters have already been written and after
you customize and submit the letters the system will automatically
fax the letters to your members of Congress.
The
Medicare Ambulance Payment
Reform and Rural Equity Act is the long-term permanent
solution to the current problem of below cost reimbursement under
the Medicare ambulance fee schedule. Senators Trent Lott
(R-MS), Mark Dayton (D-MN), Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Charles
Schumer (D-NY) introduced S. 1109 in the Senate on Tuesday, May 24
and Representatives Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Chip Pickering (R-MS) and
Tom Allen (D-ME) introduced H.R. 2014in the House on April 28.
WHY
THE AMBULANCE INDUSTRY NEEDS THIS
BILL
Although
the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act
(
MMA
) provided some temporary, targeted Medicare relief, on average
AAA members continue to grapple with Medicare payments that are
approximately 27% below the cost to provide services, with rural
providers hit even harder.
HOW
THE
NEW
BILL
HELPS
Although
the core provisions of the bill remain the same from the earlier Medicare
Ambulance Payment Reform Act introduced in past
Congresses by Senator Dayton and now-retired Representative Amo
Houghton (R-NY), it has been improved to include a more equitable
distribution of Medicare reimbursement for ambulance service
providers who transport Medicare beneficiaries in rural
communities. It provides a new, more accurate definition of
“rural” adopted by the Office of Rural Health Policy in the
Department of Health and Human Services. The bill provides
additional reimbursement in recognition of the additional costs
involved with transporting seniors in non-urban areas.
The
bill would:
- Provide
an across-the-board increase (currently 27%) to the Medicare
ambulance fee schedule rates based on average costs, as
determined by the most recent data.
- Reimburse
rural providers an additional 5.5%-22% using a tiered system
based on population density that is more precise in
identifying low population density areas than the commonly
used Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
- Require
CMS
to quickly implement the condition codes, necessary for
accurate billing.
- Provide
approximately $1 billion per year in relief to the ambulance
industry.
WE
NEED YOUR HELP TO ENLIST COSPONSORS
We
need you to contact your members of Congress to enlist their
support and to contact the offices of Senator Lott and
Representative Reynolds to cosponsor the bill. If you have
any questions, please contact AAA Vice President of Government
Affairs Tristan North at
1-800-523-4447
or tnorth@the-aaa.org.
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