Sponsors (8)
The bill could expand access to and produce evidence about hospital-at-home care—potentially reducing costs and easing hospital strain—but it also risks uneven quality, implementation burdens, delays while awaiting study results, regulatory uncertainty, and privacy concerns if safeguards and clear rules are not put in place.
Medicare beneficiaries will have expanded access to hospital-level acute care delivered at home if waiver flexibilities are extended, increasing care options outside the hospital.
Hospitals, health systems, taxpayers, and Medicare could see reduced inpatient strain and lower overall costs if hospital-at-home is adopted more widely.
Patients with acute or chronic conditions (including Medicare beneficiaries) could experience equal or better clinical outcomes and safety if the planned study supports hospital-at-home approaches.
Medicare beneficiaries and other patients risk variable quality or reduced access to needed in-person hospital services if expansion proceeds without clear safeguards and standards.
Hospitals, health systems, and clinical staff will face upfront implementation costs and ongoing administrative/data-reporting burdens to stand up and run home hospital programs, diverting staff time from care.
Requiring a study and report could delay broader policy action and wider adoption of hospital-at-home practices until the report is complete (through 2028), slowing potential patient and system benefits.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Updates Medicare statutory language on acute hospital care-at-home waiver flexibilities and requires an HHS comparative study of hospital inpatient care versus hospital-at-home by 9/30/2028.
Official title: Amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to extend acute hospital care at home waiver flexibilities, and to require an additional study and report on such flexibilities.
Introduced July 10, 2025 by Tim Scott · Last progress July 10, 2025
Amends a Medicare hospital-at-home statutory provision to update waiver flexibilities for acute hospital care delivered at home and requires HHS to produce a detailed evaluation comparing inpatient care to the Acute Hospital Care at Home program. The law directs HHS to study clinical, quality, utilization, cost, staffing, socioeconomic, transfer, and patient-experience measures and deliver a report to congressional tax-writing committees by September 30, 2028.