Today, the House of Representatives voted with 420 votes in favor, and none opposed, for Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins’ (KS-02) legislation, H.R. 5613, the Continuing Access To Hospitals Act. This bill will delay a rule from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that would require physicians to be present for minor outpatient procedures, impacting Critical Access and rural hospitals. Following the bill’s passage, Congresswoman Jenkins released the following statement:

“Rural healthcare in Kansas and across the country faces enough challenges without government bureaucracy providing one more. For the past three years, CMS has proposed a rule that would require physicians to be present for even straightforward outpatient procedures. However, many rural hospitals do not have the resources to deal with this unnecessary rule, which would impact their ability to offer crucial care services. My legislation would prevent this inflexible mandate from coming into effect and enable Critical Access Hospitals nationwide to continue providing vital care to rural communities.”

Items To Note

-          This is the third year that Congresswoman Jenkins has introduced this legislation, with the bill previously passing in 2014.  

Congresswoman Jenkins spoke on the House Floor about her legislation, click here to watch her remarks

Below Are Congresswoman Jenkins’ Remarks:

““I rise today in support of H.R. 5613, the Continuing Access to Hospitals Act of 2016, policy this Congress has passed unanimously in 2014 and 2015. Every year across Kansas, hospitals in rural communities must wait to see if they will have to comply with a burdensome federal regulation that makes caring for patients more difficult, while providing no additional benefits.

“Back in January 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began enforcing a requirement that physicians must supervise outpatient therapeutic services at Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and other small, rural hospitals.  This meant that routine outpatient therapeutic procedures such as the application of a splint to a finger or a demonstration of how to use a nebulizer had to be directly supervised by a physician. Thankfully, Congress passed an extension of a moratorium on that supervision requirement in 2014 and again in 2015. Here we are again today to try to give a little bit of certainty to these very important rural and critical access hospitals.

“There are over 1,300 critical access hospitals that serve rural Americans in nearly every state, and these facilities simply lack the resources to fulfill this burdensome mandate.  Before 2014, physicians at rural hospitals were not required to directly supervise these types of outpatient therapeutic services and asking them to do so now, after unanimously passing identical extensions the past 2 years, will only jeopardize access to care. 

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.”

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