“A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to codify the Medicare low-wage index hospital policy.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section codifies, for discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2019, an area wage index adjustment under Medicare's inpatient hospital prospective payment system (IPPS) for hospitals with a wage index (determined without regard to this provision) below the 25th percentile area wage index by increasing it by ½ of the difference between the hospital's otherwise applicable wage index and the 25th percentile wage index. (As background, the IPPS wage index adjusts standardized base payment rates for inpatient services to reflect geographic differences in hospital labor costs.) The adjustment applies in a budget neutral manner pursuant to existing requirements, without decreasing any hospital's wage index below the 75th percentile or resulting in a wage index less than 95 percent of the prior fiscal year's applicable wage index for that hospital.