As ordered reported by the House Committee on Ways and Means on February 26, 2015
H.R. 876 would require hospitals to notify Medicare beneficiaries receiving observation services for more than 24 hours of their status as an outpatient under observation. The written notification must explain that, because the beneficiary is receiving outpatient—rather than inpatient—services:
The beneficiary will be subject to cost-sharing requirements that apply to outpatient services, and
The beneficiary’s outpatient stay will not count toward the three-day inpatient stay required for a beneficiary to be eligible for Medicare coverage of subsequent skilled nursing facility services.
Enacting H.R. 876 could affect direct spending; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. However, CBO estimates that the bill would not have significant budgetary effects over the 2015-2025 period.
H.R. 876 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.
Correction: On March 13, 2015, CBO reposted this cost estimate to correct the omission of a reference to the private-sector effects in the mandates statement.
