The Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality and Access Act of 2013 was introduced in the US Senate by Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and is expected to be introduced into the House of Representatives in the near future as well. The Ambulatory Surgery Center Association supports the Act, which is intended to preserve patient access to care provided in ASCs. The bill would fix a flaw in current laws allowing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to use different measures of inflation for ASCs and hospital outpatient departments when setting rates, according to an ASCA news release.
Fixing this disparity would prevent procedures from migrating into more expensive HOPDs from ASCs and encourages cost savings to Medicare and its beneficiaries. The legislation also requires implementing a value-based purchasing program to encourage ASC and government collaboration for additional savings.
Finally, the legislation would direct CMS to add a representative of the ASC community to the Advisory Panel on Hospital Outpatient Payment, as decisions made impact both HOPD and ASC facility fees and eligible procedures, and require CMS to disclose which six criteria would trigger excluding a procedure from the ASC-approved list.
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