[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1456 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1456

  To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to improve the way 
beneficiaries are assigned under the Medicare shared savings program by 
   also basing such assignment on primary care services furnished by 
    Federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, nurse 
  practitioners, physician assistants, and clinical nurse specialists.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 22, 2015

 Ms. Cantwell (for herself, Mr. Thune, and Mrs. Murray) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                                Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to improve the way 
beneficiaries are assigned under the Medicare shared savings program by 
   also basing such assignment on primary care services furnished by 
    Federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, nurse 
  practitioners, physician assistants, and clinical nurse specialists.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Rural ACO Improvement Act of 2015''.

SEC. 2. IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ASSIGNMENT OF BENEFICIARIES UNDER THE 
              MEDICARE SHARED SAVINGS PROGRAM.

    Section 1899(c) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395jjj(c)) 
is amended--
            (1) by striking ``utilization of primary'' and inserting 
        ``utilization of--
            ``(1) in the case of performance years beginning on or 
        after April 1, 2012, primary'';
            (2) in paragraph (1), as added by paragraph (1) of this 
        section, by striking the period at the end and inserting a 
        semicolon; and
            (3) by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
            ``(2) in the case of performance years beginning on or 
        after January 1, 2016, primary care services provided under 
        this title by an ACO professional described in subsection 
        (h)(1)(B); and
            ``(3) in the case of performance years beginning on or 
        after January 1, 2016, primary care services provided under 
        this title by a Federally qualified health center or rural 
        health clinic (as those terms are defined in section 1861(aa)), 
        as determined by the Secretary.''.
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