Untitled section

(a) Prior to terminating a critical access hospital provider agreement with any hospital that was designated and certified as a critical access hospital and met the secondary roads criteria under section 485.610(c) of title 42, Code of Federal Regulations, prior to publication of the final rule, titled Medicare Program: Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting Programs; Organ Acquisition; Rural Emergency Hospitals: Payment Policies, Conditions of Participation, Provider Enrollment, Physician Self-Referral; New Service Category for Hospital Outpatient Department Prior Authorization Process; Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating; COVID-19 by the Department of Health and Human Services on November 23, 2022 (87 Fed. Reg. 71748), the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shall— (1) provide written notification to the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives detailing the justification for the termination, specifically with respect to whether or not the proposed termination is due to the nearest hospital being designated as a rural emergency hospital after January 1, 2023; (2) provide a detailed analysis of the rural healthcare impacts of the proposed termination; and (3) consult with States that require rural emergency hospitals to be licensed and regulated with minimum hospital standards of operation and provide a pathway for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to consider these facilities as hospitals to ensure continuity in hospital standards. (b) In this section: (1) The term critical access hospital has the meaning given that term in section 1861(mm)(1) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x(mm)(1)). (2) The term rural emergency hospital has the meaning given that term in section 1861(kkk)(2) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x(kkk)(2)).