This sweeping bill includes funding for important aging services programs as well as program reforms.

Senate action on its own funding bill is imminent. Let’s make sure every senator hears what aging services providers need in this funding bill.

Advocates should take action and ask senators to make the following improvements to the bill passed by the House Committee on Appropriations:

For program funding:

• Increase funding for State Survey and Certification only if needed reforms are made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to foster surveyor accountability and support quality improvement through the survey and certification process. The House committee bill would increase funding without needed reforms.
• Increase funding for the Administration for Community Living’s Older Americans Act programs under Title III B Supportive Services, which the House bill would level fund, and Title III C Nutrition Programs, which the House committee bill would only slightly increase.
• Increase funding for the Health Resources Services Administration’s Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP), which the House committee’s bill would level fund.
• Fund the Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) to support employment opportunities for individuals age 55 and older. The House committee’s bill would eliminate funding for SCSEP.

 For program reforms:

• Require setting-specific wage indexes for nursing homes, home health, and hospice separate from the Hospital Wage Index, which the House committee bill misguidingly continues to try to make workable for aging services providers, who serve older adults in care settings very different from hospitals.
• Retain the House committee’s language to prohibit the Department of Education from administering federal student aid programs in a way that does not designate advanced nursing programs as “professional degree programs.”
• Improve access to care for Medicare beneficiaries by allowing Nurse Practitioners to practice at the top of their license as language in the House committee bill would do.
• Maintain visibility for the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) by supporting CMS’ establishment of a standardized quality reporting framework and by promoting policies to limit administrative burden on PACE providers. 
• Include the House bill’s Modernizing Prior Authorization language that would encourage CMS to require more prior authorization decisions to be made in real time. 
• Adopt language that would require more Congressional oversight and transparent evaluation of the impacts of the CMS Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model. 

Take Action Today!