Medicare Access to Rural Anesthesiology Act

Key Points

• This bill changes how Medicare pays for anesthesia services in small rural hospitals. Instead of paying per procedure, Medicare would pay these hospitals back for the actual cost of keeping an anesthesiologist on staff.
• To qualify for this help, a hospital must be in a rural area and perform fewer than 800 surgeries a year. This is meant to help very small facilities that do not have enough patients to pay for a full-time specialist through regular billing.
• The goal is to help rural hospitals stay open and continue offering surgeries. Many small hospitals struggle to find or keep anesthesiologists because the current payment system does not cover the high cost of their salaries in low-volume areas.
• If passed, the new rules would begin one year later. Hospitals would need to report their surgery numbers every year to prove they still qualify for the special payments.

Impact Analysis

Govbase has not yet run an impact analysis on this legislation.