Home Health & Hospice Week

Will Congress give you a lump of coal or a present in your stocking regarding sequestration? Stay tuned to find out.

On Dec. 2, Reps. Brad Schneider (D-Illinois) and David McKinley (R-West Virginia) introduced H.R. 8840, the Medicare Sequester Moratorium Act. The legislation would extend Medicare providers’ vacation from the 2 percent sequestration reduction until the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Currently it’s set to end Dec. 31.

“The pandemic has not waned, and our providers now again face revenue cuts,” Schneider says in a release. COVID cases are surging. “Now is not the time to reinstitute across the board cuts to our providers,” he says.

“America’s health care providers continue to be stretched thin and face serious financial challenges as a result of the economic and public health crisis,” McKinley says in the release. “Suspending Medicare reimbursement cuts will allow [providers] to keep their doors open and continue providing critical care to their patients.”

The sequester moratorium “has allowed for additional reimbursement for Medicare providers, helping to support health care providers across the nation which are experi­encing lost revenues and extraordinary expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization says in a release.