On Tuesday, Congressional Leaders released a FY 2025 Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the Federal Government through March 14, 2025. A two-year extension through December 31, 2026 of the temporary Medicare ambulance add-ons payments at their current levels is included in that CR. However, late yesterday members of the incoming Administration voiced strong concerns with pieces of the CR and had additional issues that they would like addressed which has upended the package. Congressional leaders are currently mapping out potential paths forward as the current FY2025 expires tomorrow, December 20.

While the extension of the ambulance payments is currently still in play, we want to thank our champions on Capitol Hill as well as AAA members for their advocacy of a desperately needed two-year extension of the temporary Medicare ambulance add-on payments. The CR released on Tuesday also includes language to prevent a 4% PAYGO cut to all Medicare providers and suppliers. Our champions and the AAA continue to push for the two-year extension and prevention of a PAYGO cut regardless of the eventual framework of a Continuing Resolution.

Should Congress not be able to act in time to prevent a partial government shutdown, CMS has tools at its disposal to process claims uninterrupted for a period of time. Also, preventing the 4% PAYGO cut enjoys wide bipartisan support. Congress has until approximately late January to act in order to prevent the cut which has never gone into effect.

As part of its advocacy efforts, the AAA is emphasizing that Congress not allow the ambulance add-on payments to expire for any length of time or the PAYGO cut to take effect as reimbursing for services retroactively is an extreme hardship on ground ambulance services.

The AAA will continue to inform our membership of new developments on the CR and the extension of the Medicare ambulance add-on payments and efforts to prevent a PAYGO cut.