Bill > S3665

This bill, the Save Rural Hospitals Act of 2020, aims to ensure fairness in Medicare hospital payments and preserve access to rural health care. The key provisions of the bill are: 1. Establishing an area wage index floor of 0.85 for Medicare hospital payments in states that are not designated as "frontier states" (states with a population density of less than 6 people per square mile). This means that rural hospitals in these non-frontier states will receive at least 85% of the national average wage index, regardless of their actual wage index. 2. Waiving the budget neutrality requirement for this area wage index floor, so that the increased payments to rural hospitals are not offset by reductions in payments to other hospitals. The goal of these provisions is to support the financial viability of rural hospitals, which often face challenges due to their lower patient volumes and higher operating costs compared to urban hospitals.

Budget and Finance

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3665/all-info