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Consumer Voice & Other Advocates Tell Congress to Change Harmful Provision in SGR Fix Legislation

April 01, 2015

Consumer Voice, along with seventeen other national organizations and more than sixty state and local groups, has submitted a letter to Congress asking for the exclusion of nursing homes from a harmful "standard of care" provision in the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) fix legislation.  

This bill, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2), offers a permanent solution for the reimbursement formula used to determine Medicare physician payment rates (called the “sustainable growth rate” or SGR). It has already passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and will likely be considered by the U.S. Senate the week of April 13th. The "standard of care" provision within H.R. 2 would make it more difficult for violations of important federal quality of life and quality of care standards - such as residents' rights, nurse staffing, or assessment and care planning - to be used to establish a legal case of negligence against a facility. It would make it more challenging for the federal standards of care for nursing homes from being admissible into evidence in a lawsuit.  

The letter submitted by Consumer Voice, with the support of other advocacy organizations, asks Congressional leaders to remove nursing homes from the current provision to remedy this issue. It has been circulated to all members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. You can view the letter here. To learn more about this issue and to take action by contacting your U.S. Senators on this matter, click here.

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