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Medicare
Conferees Asked to Protect Health Centers
WASHINGTON, July 28, 2003 -- More than
100 House lawmakers have sent a bi-partisan letter to House-Senate
Medicare Conferees, asking that key health center provisions remain in
the final Medicare Rx bill that is hammered out in the conference.
Spearheaded by Representatives Jerry Weller (R-IL) and John Lewis
(D-GA), the letter presses conferees to maintain three essential
provisions affecting health centers in the final Medicare Reform and
Prescription Drug legislation currently being negotiated in the
conference.
"These health centers are a critical
health resource for more than 13 million medically underserved
Americans, including more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries," says
the letter, signed by 109 bipartisan Members of the House. "As you
know, health centers enjoy the bipartisan support of the majorities in
the House and Senate and are in the midst of an expansion effort
supported by the Bush Administration. It is critical that Medicare
legislation protects and preserves those efforts to expand care to
more people."
The provisions House lawmakers are
asking Conferees to preserve are:
1. The Senate's Medicare Advantage
"Wrap Around" Provision -- The "Wrap Around" provision ensures that
the new MedicareAdvantage plan Congress recently passed allows health
centers to be reimbursed for the cost of providing care to Medicare
patients, the same as under traditional Medicare. The provision is
crucial to cash-strapped health centers that are struggling to provide
care to the growing ranks of uninsured and underinsured families. The
Senate in a 94-1 vote overwhelmingly approved the provision.
2. The House's "Health Center Safe
Harbor" Provision -- This provision will allow health centers to
accept donated services aimed at helping provide low-cost, affordable
services to their low-income and uninsured patient population - as
long as certain provisions against fraud and abuse exist. Under
current law, health centers that receive free or discounted services
for their patients from other providers could come under prosecution
or investigation by the Office of Inspector General.
3. The House and Senate's Technical
Correction for Skilled Nursing Facilities -- This provision makes the
technical correction to allow health centers to bill for FQHC
(federally qualified health center) services given to patients in
skilled nursing facilities-the same benefit that many other providers
of the same services already have.
"These are common sense,
cost-effective provisions that will help health centers maintain and
expand care to more Americans," write Representatives Weller and Lewis
in the letter to House colleagues.
A copy of the Letter to Conferees and
the signatories will be made available at
http://www.nachc.com
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Established in 1970, NACHC is a
non-profit organization whose mission is (1) to represent the
interests of federally supported and other federally qualified health
centers and (2) to serve as an information source concerning issues of
health care for poor and medically underserved populations in the
United States. |
