House Legislation for Competitive Bidding Rural Relief Expected Next Week

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2016)—The long-awaited House competitive-bidding rural relief and bid-ceiling fix bill is expected to drop next week—a current working draft of the legislation can be found here; it is the House companion to S. 2736. The House bill has identical language, except for the pay-for provision. Because of some concern in the House, our champions have included a placeholder pay-for to give House and Senate committees time to find an alternative.

While AAHomecare has heard encouraging reports from Capitol Hill offices that your calls and emails are being heard, our champions have asked for as much grassroots support as the HME community can muster. If you have not yet reached out to your Representatives in the House, please call their office with this simple request:

Please co-sponsor competitive bidding rural relief legislation expected from Reps. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa) next week; the legislation will be similar to S. 2736, which has already been introduced in the Senate.

Let them know, in your own words, why you believe the next round (July 1) of bidding-derived cuts for rural and non-bid areas need to be delayed until the effects of the January 1 cuts can be fully assessed.  

You can find contact information for your Representative in the AAHomecare Congressional directory. As AAHomecare noted previously, if your representative is on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, your outreach is especially needed!

Additional resources:

• Issue brief on rural relief legislation
• State-by-state maps showing CBAs as well as regional/non-bid and rural areas
• Email your legislators here

This legislation represents our best chance to get a significant delay on the next round of cuts and to make sure CMS is properly assessing the effect of the bidding program on rural patient access. If you haven’t reached out to your legislators on issue, the time is now!

Visit aahomecare.org for more information.