U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) stood up for Medicare beneficiaries by calling for improvements in health care delivery in rural parts of Montana.
In a letter to Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, Daines and Zinke questioned why some Montana zip codes are not given rural designation for ground ambulance services despite meeting that qualification for most other Medicare programs.
There are currently 16 zip codes in Montana that meet rural designation criteria but have not been designated rural for ground ambulance reimbursement purposes under Medicare.
“With lower population density and increased travel times, it is important that rural areas have the appropriate designation,” Daines and Zinke wrote. “Without this, it puts access to care for not only the Medicare patients but all who are served by the provider in jeopardy. We urge CMS to apply a methodology consistent with Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) and other Medicare programs for ambulance service providers and the patients they serve.”
The lawmakers said it is concerning that CMS has not considered 132 census tracts that the Health Resources & Services Administration’s ORHP has designated as rural.
The tracts meet criteria for rural designation that state the land area must be greater than 400 square miles and population density must be no more than 35 people per square mile.
“A zip code being rural has a significant impact on the services that are able to be provided to Medicare beneficiaries due to reimbursement under the Medicare ambulance fee schedule,” the lawmakers wrote.