Press Releases
October 1, 2003
Conrad secures extension of Medicare payments to rural hospitals
Measure assures nearly $1.4 million for North Dakota health care providers
Washington – Senator Kent Conrad and Congressman Earl Pomeroy today announced that the House and Senate passed their legislation to extend increased Medicare payments to rural hospitals, beating a fiscal year deadline that would have cost about 15 North Dakota hospitals as much as $1.4 million.
"We've got a problem in North Dakota with our hospitals getting a less-than-fair reimbursement from Medicare for the costs of treating our people, and it has put too many of our hospitals on dangerous financial footing. The legislation I sponsored with Congressman Pomeroy, and which passed both the House and the Senate, gives our hospitals more time and breathing room so we can fix this problem permanently," Senator Conrad said. "In the meantime, I am pressing my colleagues in the Medicare conference committee to finish their work on the Medicare improvement bill, which includes my proposal to permanently raise the reimbursement rates of our North Dakota hospitals closer to those of hospitals in more urban areas."
"The idea that rural hospitals deserve less to treat patients is simply wrong. Extending the standardized payments to rural hospitals helps level the playing field between urban and rural hospitals," said Pomeroy, who is Co-Chair of the House Rural Health Care Coalition. "This is a victory, but Congress needs to permanently increase these Medicare reimbursement payments to our rural providers."
Earlier this year, Congress approved a temporary measure that increases Medicare payments to rural health care providers to reduce the gap compared to the payments received by urban hospitals for inpatient treatment. That provision expired on midnight Tuesday, the last day of the fiscal year. The measure passed today extends these payments for an additional six months.
Senator Conrad and Pomeroy have actively worked to modernize the Medicare payment formulas to reflect the increasing costs of health care in largely rural states like North Dakota. Senator Conrad's H-CARE legislation, which raises Medicare reimbursement to rural health care providers, was adopted by both the House and the Senate, and was endorsed by the President. In the House, Congressman Pomeroy co-sponsored an amendment to the House passed Medicare bill that provides $27.7 billion dollars in increased Medicare payments to rural health care providers.
