Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn have introduced S. 3665 to boost Medicare payments for rural hospitals. Specifically, the bill would establish an appropriate national minimum (0.85) for the Medicare Area Wage Index (AWI) to ensure rural hospitals are paid for the care they provide. There was significant changes to the AWI last year, which provided higher Medicare payments for a majority of rural hospitals, and this legislation will build upon that. Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Doug Jones (D-AL), Tim Kaine (D-VA), David Perdue (R-GA) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) are original cosponsors of the bill.
