On Tuesday, March 1, Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) reintroduced the Medicare Ambulance Access Preservation Act (S. 424).  Parallel to the bill last Congress, S. 424 would implement a 6% increase under the Medicare ambulance fee schedule for ambulance transports originating in urban and rural areas and extend the bonus base payment of 22.6% for ambulance transports originating in super rural areas.  In order to reduce the overall cost of the bill, however, the duration of the relief was scaled back to five years.

The relief under S. 424 would take effect January 1, 2012 and replace the current temporary relief of 2% urban, 3% rural and the super rural bonus payment which are set to expire at the end of this year.  In the near future, NAEMT will be launching a Call To Action to request members to contact their Senators in support of cosponsoring the legislation.