President Bush may have recently signed a Medicare bill
into law, but legislators are expected to revisit some aspects of it because of
short time frames built into the legislation.
For example, the law (S. 2499) only extends by half a
year an extension of therapy caps for Medicare Part B therapy. The law also
provides a 0.5% increase in the Medicare physician payment update for just six
months.
Nursing home providers have been pleased that the law
does not cut into the 3.3% market basket for skilled nursing facilities to fund
Medicare programs, such as the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The
law extends funding for SCHIP through March 31, 2009.