It is important to urge your U.S. Senators to cosponsor S. 3626, the PACE Expanded Act. This bipartisan legislation would eliminate many of the obstacles faced by PACE organizations seeking to serve more participants, including:

• the inability to have multiple applications to either expand a service area, add a PACE Center within an existing service area, or establish a new PACE organization simultaneously pending before CMS at the same time;
• the length of time CMS takes to approve or deny either expansion or new site applications;
• the requirement that new participants must enroll only on the first of a month; and
• the one size fits all approach to setting premiums for Medicare-only participants.

The PACE Expanded Act would address all of these issues as well as require CMS to implement PACE-specific pilots to test the feasibility of the care model for new populations not currently served. While similar to the PACE Plus Act, the greatest difference between it and the PACE Expanded Act is that it has bipartisan support, which is key to a bill's potential progression through the legislative process.