STAR Act

This bill changes how Medicare pays long-term care hospitals. It extends a reduced "site neutral" payment adjustment, changing its end year in the law from 2026 to 2032. It adds a new "high acuity" criterion that lets certain patient discharges be paid at the standard long-term care hospital rate instead of the site neutral rate, starting October 1, 2026. To qualify, the patient must have come directly from a general acute-care hospital or critical access hospital, be in a diagnosis group with a relative weight of 0.8 or higher, and be discharged from a hospital that existed or was being built or approved before the law takes effect. The bill also lets patients coming from critical access hospitals count under the existing ICU and ventilator criteria for discharges on or after October 1, 2026.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• Kevin Hern Republican sponsor
• 4 cosponsors