Ask Your Rep to Sign the Dear Colleague Letter

The Bush Administration's fiscal year 2009 budget calls for a regulatory proposal that would cut Medicare Part A skilled nursing facility (SNF) funding by $720 million in 2009 and $4.7 billion over the next five years. A funding cut of this nature would undermine the growing complex care needs of America’s oldest, sickest nursing home residents, and undercut ongoing quality improvements in the clinical infrastructure already underway that are now benefitting patients.

U.S. Senators and Representatives are showing support for protecting this skilled nursing care funding by signing letters to Secretary Michael Leavitt at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services urging his rejection of these funding cuts.

The deadline for Senators and Representatives to sign on to these letters is Tuesday, June 24. Write your elected officials to encourage them to sign these Dear Colleague letters and show their support for quality skilled nursing care. (To see the list of elected officials who have signed onto the "Dear Colleague" letter, please click the "Tell Me More" link below.)

Tell me more

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

On behalf of our nation's 3 million Medicare beneficiaries who rely and depend upon skilled nursing care annually - and the 1.7 million men and women who care for them - I respectfully urge you to show your support of protecting vital funding for this care by signing the Dear Colleague letter currently in circulation which encourages the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reject the Administration-proposed regulatory rule that would cut Medicare Part A funding for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) by $720 million in 2009 and $4.7 billion over the next five years.

CMS is considering adopting this proposed rule in order to correct a forecast error made in 2005 when it revised and expanded its Medicare patient classification categories - called resource utilization groups (RUGs) - in part to more accurately compensate skilled nursing care providers delivering medically complex care.

In proposing these funding cuts, however, the Administration fails to factor in CMS's implementation of policy changes at the same time that it adjusted its RUGs which encouraged the movement of certain high-acuity Medicare beneficiaries to SNFs.  These policy changes have not only delivered quality care for these patients, but have also created an estimated $709 million in savings to Medicare.

Speaking on behalf of my fellow caregivers and our residents, I am deeply concerned that the funding cuts in the Administration's proposal would prove enormously detrimental to SNFs' ongoing ability to continue caring for these high-acuity residents, as well as harm the significant quality improvements made in our nation's skilled nursing care in recent years. Funding cuts would also put at risk facilities' capacity to sustain caregiver wages and benefit packages that are already on the margin of being uncompetitive with other service-oriented professions.

I urge you to sign on to the Dear Colleague letter in circulation to help us protect quality care for our nation's skilled nursing care residents. Thank you in advance for your support on this critical issue.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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