Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2025
Key claim: HR3954 would count hospital outpatient observation time toward Medicare’s three-day inpatient stay requirement, enabling beneficiaries to qualify for skilled nursing facility coverage after observation stays.
Abstract
(HR3954 · 119th Congress) Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2025 This bill deems an individual receiving outpatient observation services in a hospital as an inpatient for purposes of satisfying the three-day inpatient hospital-stay requirement with respect to Medicare coverage of skilled nursing facility (SNF) services. (Generally, individuals must have been an inpatient at a hospital for at least three days in order to qualify for SNF services. An individual’s time spent under observation at a hospital for purposes of determining whether the individual should be admitted does not count towards this requirement.) Latest action (2025-06-12): Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Why this matters
Medicare beneficiaries placed under ‘observation’ status—even for multi-day hospital stays—currently do not accrue the three inpatient days required to trigger skilled nursing facility (SNF) coverage, leaving many patients responsible for the full cost of post-hospital rehab. HR3954 targets this long-standing coverage gap by counting observation time toward the threshold, which would directly change what a subset of hospitalized seniors pay for follow-on SNF care.