The PEAKS Act amends Medicare law to change how critical access hospitals in remote areas are paid for ambulance services and how such hospitals qualify for that designation. Currently, Medicare's fee schedule uses a 35-mile drive standard, but starting January 1, 2026, hospitals located in mountainous terrain or areas served only by secondary roads would instead be measured using a shorter 15-mile drive standard when calculating ambulance service payments. The bill also protects hospitals that already qualified as critical access hospitals under the existing 15-mile mountainous or secondary-road distance rule, ensuring that if a new hospital opens between 10 and 15 miles away, the original hospital won't lose its critical access designation, effective January 1, 2025. This primarily benefits rural and geographically isolated hospitals and the communities relying on their emergency medical services, helping preserve access to care in hard-to-reach areas. The Department of Health and Human Services must issue implementing regulations within one year of enactment.
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