Political Quotes

“I am pleased to see that the 21st Century Cures Act will fix one of the issues associated with payments for hospital outpatient departments that arose from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. You will recall that section 603 of that act changed the way these departments will be reimbursed by Medicare in the future. Hospital outpatient departments that were billing Medicare prior to November 2, 2015, however, were exempted from these reduced payments. We have heard from a number of hospitals in Florida that were in the middle of developing hospital outpatient departments when the new law went into effect. They had made substantial investments in these new departments under the assumption that Medicare would pay them just as it had been doing for years. I am pleased to see that the 21st Century Cures Act will permit hospitals that were in the process of developing outpatient departments to be reimbursed under the previous payment system. In my State, Jackson Health System, a large public hospital which is known throughout the world for its high-quality healthcare and its value as a public hospital in our community, was in the process of building four new outpatient departments for patients in the Miami-Dade County area when the new law was passed. They had executed binding leases on three of the departments, constructed facilities, and finalized contracts for architectural and engineering reviews on several of the facilities.…”