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House to Consider Extending Medicare Sequester Delay

The moratorium on the two percent sequestration of Medicare payments could be extended under a bill the U.S. House of Representatives may consider this week.

If adopted, the bill would extend the sequester delay for nine months, providing financial relief that many health care providers seek as they continue to deal with the financial challenges posed by COVID-19.

The sequester delay was implemented early in the pandemic as a means of providing additional Medicare revenue to hospitals and other health care providers at a time when many people were delaying seeking medical attention out of fear of contracting COVID-19.

Without action by Congress, the current delay of the Medicare sequester will expire at the end of March.

Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania logoSNAP has urged Congress to extend the Medicare sequestration delay on a number of occasions, doing so most recently in this February 5 letter to members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation.

Learn more about the latest effort to extend the Medicare sequester delay in the Fierce Healthcare article “House to vote later this week on bill to delay Medicare sequestration payment cuts.”

2021-03-18T06:00:32+00:00March 18th, 2021|Medicare, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off on House to Consider Extending Medicare Sequester Delay

Medicare Cuts May be Part of Budget Deal

The agreement between the White House and congressional negotiators on a two-year budget deal and an increase in the federal debt ceiling will be paid for in part with reductions in Medicare payments.
Under the reported agreement, negotiators agreed to increase federal spending $80 billion over two years, and that increase will almost certainly need to be offset by spending cuts. The New York Times has reported that “The Medicare savings would come from cuts in payments to doctors and other health care providers.”
US Capitol DomeThe budget agreement reportedly did not include specific spending cuts beyond extension of the current two percent Medicare sequestration cuts, although the publication The Hill reports that site-neutral Medicare outpatient payments may be part of the agreement; the additional cuts will need to be negotiated within Congress.
To learn more about the budget agreement and its possible implications for health care providers, see this New York Times article and this report from The Hill.

2015-10-27T16:31:46+00:00October 27th, 2015|Medicare|Comments Off on Medicare Cuts May be Part of Budget Deal

Western PA Hospitals Worry About Fiscal Cliff, Part 2

No sooner did hospitals in western Pennsylvania breathe a sigh of relief over escaping the worst possible scenarios in the fiscal cliff crisis than they looked ahead and saw the fiscal cliff sequel:  March 1, when all Medicare payments will be cut two percent unless Congress acts to prevent that reduction.
With Medicare accounting for 40 percent, 50 percent, and even 60 percent of revenue in some western Pennsylvania hospitals, providers are concerned about the impact the two percent sequester could have on their overall financial health.
Such a loss would be especially hard to bear for the area’s safety-net hospitals, which typically have fewer insured patients than other hospitals and therefore are more dependent on their Medicare revenue.
Learn more about why western Pennsylvania hospitals are concerned about March 1 in this Pittsburgh Business Times articlePennsylvania State Map.

2013-01-09T06:00:09+00:00January 9th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Western PA Hospitals Worry About Fiscal Cliff, Part 2
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