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Requires the Medicare Innovation Center to develop and run a payment model that pays separately for blood transfusions given to hospice patients instead of including them in the hospice per‑day payment. The separate payment must equal the Medicare Part A amount that would apply if the transfusion were not furnished under hospice, and the Center must implement the model within one year and evaluate specified utilization and outcome measures versus comparable non‑participant patients.
The bill increases hospice patients' access to clinically appropriate transfusions and generates evaluative data to inform policy, but it raises Medicare costs, creates some risk of overuse, and imposes administrative demands on CMS.
Medicare hospice patients will have transfusions reimbursed separately, reducing financial disincentives for hospices and improving access to clinically appropriate transfusions that can enhance symptom control and quality of life.
Medicare beneficiaries and policymakers will benefit from required evaluations (e.g., hospital utilization, ICU days) that could show whether separate hospice payments reduce acute care use near end of life and inform better payment policy.
Medicare program and taxpayers could face higher spending because hospice transfusions would be reimbursed separately, increasing program costs.
Medicare beneficiaries in hospice could face increased risk of overtreatment if hospices increase transfusions primarily to obtain additional reimbursement rather than for clinical need.
CMS and federal staff may need to allocate personnel and resources to implement and evaluate the change within one year, creating administrative strain and possibly diverting attention from other payment-model work.
Introduced June 3, 2025 by Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen · Last progress June 3, 2025