NRLN Action Alert: Legislation Needed to Protect Medicare Beneficiaries

There are three bills languishing in Congressional committees that should be passed to benefit Medicare beneficiaries and save Medicare expenditures. The situations that these bills address are something that we may all face in the future whether it is us or one of our loved ones. You should have received an Alert Notice from the NRLN asking you to go to their website and click on the Action Alert notification on the homepage and send the prepared communication to your Congressional Representatives asking them to put pressure on the Committees that are reviewing these bills to get them out of committee and put them to a vote. Also ask them to vote yes to make these into law.

Below is an excerpt from the NRLN Action Alert email. If you haven’t already responded to the Action Alert, please do so now. It is very important for us to let our Congressional Representatives know where we stand.

Thanks for your support…

Jay Kuhnie
President – NCRO

NRLN Action Alert: Legislation Needed to Protect Medicare Beneficiaries
There are three bills in Congressional Committees that address the three-day hospital stay requirement for Medicare beneficiaries to be eligible to receive skilled nursing facility (SNF) services. The National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN) prefers the passage of H.R. 3531, the Creating Access to Rehabilitation for Every Senior (CARES) Act. This bipartisan bill would eliminate the three-day “inpatient” hospital stay requirement for Medicare beneficiaries who are in need of SNF services, thus not requiring a patient to be hospitalized prior to receiving SNF services. This would save Medicare the hospital costs.
There are two other bills on this issue that would be acceptable to the NRLN if passed. H.R. 1179 and S. 569, the Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act would count being in a hospital for “observation” toward satisfying the “inpatient” requirement for Medicare to cover SNF services. However, it does not eliminate the hospitalization requirement as H.R. 3531 does.
All three bills have bipartisan support. I am asking you to email the NRLN’s sample letters to your U.S. Representative and Senators to urge them to work to get these bills out of committee and passed. Go to the NRLN’s Legislative Action Center at www.congressweb.com/NRLN . Below the Action Alert click on the “Write your Legislators” link to access the NRLN’s sample letters. It will only take a few minutes to email your letters.