YourVoice.Now Summary
Average Household ImpactTransparency & AccountabilityMedicare would test paying for blood transfusions separately from the flat daily hospice rate.
Average Household Impact
- Hospice transfusion access — Medicare would pay for transfusions on top of the flat daily hospice rate
Transparency & Accountability
- Evaluation requirements — CMS must compare hospice length of stay, ICU days, and transfusion rates against similar patients
The details
Medicare pays hospices one flat daily rate meant to cover everything a patient needs. A single blood transfusion can cost more than that whole daily payment. Patients who need regular transfusions — often people with blood cancers — sometimes delay hospice rather than give them up. Medicare's innovation center would have to test paying for those transfusions separately, at the rate Medicare pays outside hospice. The test model must be up and running within a year of enactment. Evaluators would compare patients in the model against similar patients outside it. They would track chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life, emergency room and ICU use in the last 30 days, and how long people spent in hospice before dying.
Congressional Summary
Improving Access to Transfusion Care for Hospice Patients Act of 2026This bill requires the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to test a model under which blood transfusions furnished to an individual receiving hospice care are paid separately from the hospice all-inclusive per diem payment under Medicare. The CMMI must evaluate the model by comparing patients participating in the model with those outside of the model in relation to specified metrics, such as hospital utilization and days of hospice care before the end of life.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-07-15
- Date Added
- 2026-07-28
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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