Ask your members of Congress to support the Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act!

Many Medicare residents entering into a skilled nursing facility (SNF) are coming from the acute hospital setting. In order to receive the paid Medicare SNF benefit they must have received inpatient status for three consecutive days during their hospital stay. Those not classified as inpatient but rather as observation are consequently charged for SNF services. The Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2015 would count all time (inpatient or observation) spent in the hospital towards the required three day stay.

AMDA has long supported this legislation and has had policy on this issue for many years stating that “AMDA urge the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to allow observation bed status and emergency room observation time to count toward meeting the 3-day inpatient stay requirement.”

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