S. 3145 — CARE Act of 2025

This section requires the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI)—which tests innovative Medicare and Medicaid payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures while preserving or enhancing care quality—to test the Comprehensive Alternative Response for Emergencies Model under Medicare Part B beginning no later than two years after enactment of the CARE Act of 2025, for a five-year period, and exempts the model from CMI criteria for nationwide expansion. (1) The model pays providers or suppliers of ground ambulance services (or entities under arrangement with them) for emergency dispatches that do not result in a payable transport, if furnished in accordance with state and local licensure and protocols (which may include online medical direction via telehealth); (2) payments align generally with rates for completed transports under Medicare ambulance fee schedule provisions; and (3) telehealth furnished in conjunction qualifies the patient's location as a Medicare telehealth originating site eligible for a facility fee. This section further requires the Comptroller General to report to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees, four years after model implementation, analyzing Medicare beneficiaries' emergency medical services access and outcomes under the model (versus traditional transport), regional/demographic variations, best practices, challenges, and improvement recommendations.