by
Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | August 02, 2012
"We want them to be as educated as they can be," Keilers said.
According to rural health advocates, struggling rural hospitals would be hard hit without the money from these payment adjustments, as they also face the 2 percent Medicare sequestration cuts in January and a decrease in the bad debt reimbursement from 70 percent to 65 percent, among other troubles.
Adirondack Medical Center, for instance, a hospital in rural New York, received $708,200 in 2011 under low-volume payments, according to a press release from Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York who's pushing for legislation to save the programs.
In May, Schumer, along with Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, introduced a bill into the Senate that would extend the two programs by one year. A similar bill was introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Tom Reed, a New York Republican, in June. That bill, however, also requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on the financial impact of federal rural health funding programs.
Asked if he thought the bills had a chance of passing before the programs end in October, Keilers said he wanted to be "optimistic" but thought they would likely only succeed if taken up in a larger reconciliation bill.
"The chances of them passing on their own in an election year are not very high," he said.
As of this writing, the House bill has 33 cosponsors, and the Senate bill 11, according to GovTrack.
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