Save Struggling Hospitals Act

More Medicare pay for low‑wage hospitals

This bill would raise Medicare's area wage index for hospitals whose local wage index is below the 25th percentile. For each such hospital, the area wage index would be increased by one-half of the gap to the 25th-percentile index for that fiscal year. The change would apply to discharges on or after October 1, 2019. The increases would have to be budget-neutral. Budget-neutral offsets would not be allowed to lower a hospital's area wage index if that hospital's index (without this rule) is below the 75th percentile. Those offsets also would not be allowed to reduce a hospital's index to less than 95 percent of its prior-year index.