Be a Champion for Rural Families – Call your Senator and Representative today!

Posted on November 19, 2023 By Arin ParsaComments Off on Be a Champion for Rural Families – Call your Senator and Representative today!
Arin Parsa and Teens for Vaccines support Rural Health Clinic Burden Reduction Act

Teens for Vaccines proudly supports the bipartisan legislation, the Rural Health Clinic Burden Reduction Act ( S.198 and H.R.3730). This critical legislation modernizes several outdated aspects of the Rural Health Clinic (RHC) statute which has not been updated in over 45 years.

First signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, the RHC program was designed to improve access to health care in rural, underserved areas. Over forty-five years later, there are approximately 5,200 rural health clinics, providing quality care to patients in rural and underserved areas.

S. 198 and H.R.3730 modernize various provisions relating to RHCs under Medicare, currently limited by a 1977 understanding of medicine. These changes include:

  • Aligning federal scope of practice laws for Physician Assistants (PA) and Nurse Practitioners (NP) with state scope of practice laws;
  • modernizing the currently outdated lab requirements;
  • allowing RHCs to employ or contract with PAs and NPs;
  • amending location requirement definitions to retain status quo policy; and
  • permitting RHCs to offer expanded behavioral healthcare in areas experiencing a shortage of such services.

These provisions will modernize and strengthen the RHC program and better enable RHCs to continue our mission of making high quality and timely healthcare accessible in the rural and underserved regions of our country. Particularly, permitting RHCs to offer expanded behavioral healthcare in areas facing shortage addresses a longstanding critical need.  

S.198 was introduced in the Senate by rural health champions Senators John Barrasso (WY), Tina Smith (MN), Marsha Blackburn (TN), and Michael Bennet (CO). Additional cosponsors include Senator Cynthia Lummis (WY), with Senator Jacky Rosen (NV), Senator Dick Durbin (IL), and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).

H.R. 3730 was introduced in the House of Representatives by rural health champions Representatives Adrian Smith (NE-03), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Jill Tokuda (HI-02), and Kelly Armstrong (ND). Additional co-sponsors include Representative David Valadao (CA-22), Representative Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), Rep. Finstad (MN-01), Rep. Nehls (TX-22), Rep. Costa (CA-21), Rep. Harshbarger (TN-01), Rep. Green (TN-07), Rep. Barr (KY-06), Rep. Mann (KS-01), Rep. Boebert (CO-03), and Rep. Pappas (NH-01).

Contact your Senator and Representative today!

Call, email, or use VoterVoice
https://www.narhc.org/narhc/RHC_Burden_Reduction_Act.asp