Skip to main content
H.R. 538 119th Congress House

Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2025

Official title: To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to remove the 96-hour physician certification requirement for inpatient critical access hospital services.

Introduced: January 16, 2025 Introduced by: Adrian Smith Republican · Nebraska See on congress.gov
Health Health care coverage and accessHealth facilities and institutionsHealth personnelHospital care
More subjectsShow fewer subjects
MedicareRural conditions and development
Sign in to write a letter Sign in to watch
 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jan 16, 2025
Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Jan 16, 2025
Introduced in House
 Ask about this bill AI · grounded in the bill text

Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.

AI answers can be imperfect; always confirm against the full bill text.

What's happening now January 16, 2025

Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2025

This bill repeals the 96-hour physician-certification requirement for inpatient critical access hospital services under Medicare. Under current law, as a condition for Medicare payment for such services, a physician must certify that a patient may reasonably be expected to be discharged or transferred to a hospital within 96 hours after admission to the critical access hospital.

 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 32

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

See all 32 filings →
 Cosponsors 2
All 2 Democratic 1 Republican 1
R
Bergman, Jack
Michigan · Oct 24, 2025
 D
Sewell, Terri A.
Alabama · Jan 16, 2025
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 538: Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2025. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-538/
MLA
"H.R. 538: Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2025." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-538/.
Bluebook (legal)
H.R. 538, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-538/.
Markdown link
[H.R. 538: Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2025](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-538/)
Report a problem