5 Bills, 1 Month: AHA Urges Outreach to Legislators Out on Recess

The American Hospital Association wants acute care organizations to invite members of Congress into their hospitals during the August recess. The group is seeking co-sponsors on five bills.

Federal lawmakers packed up and left town last week for the start of the traditional August recess. The month-long break was mandated 43 years ago because the Capitol dome could not protect lawmakers from the worst of Washington's infernal summer climate.

This year, the American Hospital Association is urging acute care organizations to seize the opportunity of the visit their representatives in Congress and invite these elected officials into their local hospitals for a visit. That way, lawmakers can see the organizations' progress, and presumably their operational problems, first hand.

"Let them see your quality improvements, work to reduce readmissions, investments in health information technology, new community collaborations to improve population health and partnerships with providers to better coordinate care," AHA president and CEO Rich Umbdenstock urged in a newsletter to members.

"Tell them how further reductions to Medicare and Medicaid payments would affect your ability to provide care to your patients and community."

Umbdenstock urged hospital leaders: "Don't stop there. Let your staff explain the burden that recovery audit contractors are placing on your hospital's resources."

His message links to a list of five AHA-supported legislative items he said are "most urgent to hospitals right now" adding that the AHA wants to "secure as many co-sponsors as possible" to these bills.

Here is a list of five 2013 bills that the AHA suggests hospital executives should discuss with their representatives.

1. The Medicare Audit Improvement Act

H.R. 1250; S. 1012 –Introduced by Reps. Sam Graves, R-MO and Adam Schiff, (D-CA) and by Sens. Mark Pryor, (D-AR) and Roy Blunt, (R-MO) respectively, this bill would establish a consolidated limit for medical record requests, impose financial penalties on RACs that fail to comply with program requirements, make RAC performance evaluations publicly available, and allow denied inpatient claims to be billed as outpatient claims when appropriate. View fact sheet.

2. The DSH Reduction Relief Act

H.R. 1920 – Introduced by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), this bill would eliminate the first two years of the ACA's cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid DSH programs to allow expansion of health coverage to become more fully realized. View fact sheet.

3. The Fairness in Health Care Claims, Guidance and Investigations Act

H.R. 2931 – Introduced by Reps. Howard Coble, (R-NC), and David Scott, (D-GA), this bill would amend the False Claims Act by requiring that federal agencies review their own rules and regulations to determine whether a billing dispute should be pursued as fraud before launching an investigation, and assuring that unintentional billing disputes aren't penalized as harshly as fraud. View fact sheet.

4. The Rural Hospital Access Act

S. 842; H.R. 1787 – Introduced by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Reps. Tom Reed (R-NY) and Peter Welch (D-VT), respectively, this bill would provide for an extension of the Medicare-dependent hospital program and the increased payments under the Medicare low-volume hospital program. View fact sheet.

5. The Protecting Access to Rural Therapy Services Act

S. 1143; H.R. 2801 – Introduced by Sen. Jerry Moran, (R-KS), and by Reps. Kristi Noem, (R-SD), and Collin Peterson, (D-MN), respectively, this bill would protect access to outpatient therapeutic services by adopting a default standard of "general supervision" [rather than "direct supervision"] for outpatient therapeutic services, creating a provider advisory panel to identify those outpatient services complex enough to require direct supervision, and holding hospitals and CAHs harmless from civil or criminal action regarding CMS' retroactive reinterpretation. View fact sheet.