H.R. 4277 clarifies how rural emergency hospitals are paid under Medicaid by ensuring they are treated as outpatient hospitals rather than inpatient facilities. This change affects rural emergency hospitals—smaller facilities designed to serve remote communities—and directs the federal government to explicitly include their services in Medicaid's definition of covered outpatient hospital services, which could improve their financial stability. The bill also ensures that nursing facility services within rural emergency hospitals are covered under Medicaid's nursing facility benefit. The amendments take effect immediately upon enactment, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services must issue final regulations within 12 months to implement the new payment rules.
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