This bill would create a Medicare payment model to give extra (supplemental) payments to ground and air ambulance agencies. The extra payments would cover costs to maintain ready supplies of certain life‑saving emergency medicines and blood products that EMS crews must give right away. The model would run at least 5 years. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary would pick participating EMS agencies across HHS regions and pay them monthly or quarterly. The bill lists specific medicines (for example, epinephrine, lidocaine, calcium, saline, lactated Ringer's, albuterol, midazolam, dextrose, and fentanyl) and defines blood products broadly.
The bill also requires the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to report to Congress within 2 years on payment for emergency medical services. MedPAC must evaluate EMS medical directors, the EMS workforce, quality assurance ideas, and whether to define "emergency medical services" in Medicare law or add EMS agencies as Medicare "providers of services."
Finally, the HHS Secretary must issue guidance to hospital emergency departments within 1 year about "wall time" (time beyond 30 minutes for patient handoff from EMS to hospital staff). One year after that guidance, HHS must report to Congress on whether wall time decreased and recommend any legislative steps.
No publicly available information on total federal cost estimates. The bill requires Medicare to make supplemental payments to participating EMS agencies. The Secretary will set payment rates based on costs described in the bill and will pay participants as lump sums monthly or quarterly.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.