U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would protect the staff and patients of critical access hospitals in rural areas by eliminating the new “condition of payment” rule recently implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The condition of payment rule, which requires doctors in these hospitals to predict and limit a patient’s stay at the facility within 96 hours, has been troublesome to medical personnel at many critical access hospitals across the country.
“This absurd rule puts arbitrary limits on how many hours patients can stay in critical access hospitals, and asks doctors to be clairvoyant and predict the unknown when admitting a patient,” Roberts, co-chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus, said. “This puts the doctor in a terrible position and damages the all-important doctor patient relationship,”
The bill, named the Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2015, essentially removes the “condition of payment” for critical access hospitals that requires a physician to certify upon admission that each patient will be released or moved to a different facility in less than 96 hours.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) introduced the bill along with Roberts, giving it strong bipartisan support. There also are 16 co-sponsors signing on; and the legislation already has the support of the American Hospital Association, the National Rural Health Association and the American College of Surgeons.
“The AHA supports this bill to relieve our nation’s critical access hospitals from the unnecessary, burdensome federal regulation requiring a physician to certify a patient will be released or transferred within 96 hours,” Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, said “This bipartisan legislation would provide important relief for (critical access hospitals) and help ensure all Americans – no matter where they live — have access to essential health care services.”