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Bill > S3085


US S3085

US S3085
Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality and Access Act of 2019


summary

Introduced
12/18/2019
In Committee
12/18/2019
Crossed Over
Passed
Dead
12/31/2020

Introduced Session

116th Congress

Bill Summary

A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to modernize payments for ambulatory surgical centers under the Medicare program, and for other purposes. This bill establishes and modifies certain requirements relating to Medicare payments for ambulatory surgical center (ASC) services. Specifically, the bill (1) requires the payment system for ASC services to feature certain positive annual adjustments equivalent to those made with respect to hospital outpatient department (OPD) services; (2) revises quality reporting requirements to permit publicly available, side-by-side comparisons of quality measures for ASCs and OPDs in the same geographic area; and (3) requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), when excluding requested procedures from the list of those approved to be performed in ASCs, to cite specified reasons for doing so. With respect to excluding procedures from the approved list for ASCs, the CMS may not cite as a basis for exclusion that a procedure can only be reported using an unlisted surgical procedure code. (Physicians sometimes use unlisted codes when performing new procedures or services if no existing code is adequately descriptive.)

AI Summary

This bill aims to modernize payments for ambulatory surgical center (ASC) services under the Medicare program. Specifically, it (1) requires the payment system for ASC services to feature positive annual adjustments equivalent to those made for hospital outpatient department (OPD) services; (2) revises quality reporting requirements to enable side-by-side comparisons of quality measures for ASCs and OPDs in the same geographic area; and (3) requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to cite specific reasons when excluding requested procedures from the list of those approved to be performed in ASCs, and prohibits citing the use of an unlisted surgical procedure code as a basis for exclusion.

Committee Categories

Budget and Finance

Sponsors (3)

Last Action

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (on 12/18/2019)

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