Government Funding Bills Signed into Law for Fiscal Year 2024
On March 9, 2024, the President signed the Consolidation Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 4366) into law. This $460 billion “minibus” package of six spending bills prevented a partial government shutdown by providing funding for fiscal year (FY) 2024 (through September 30, 2024). From a healthcare perspective, subtitle C – Medicare, contains measures which include:
- Extension of funding for quality measure endorsement, input and selection to December 31, 2024.
- Extension of the work geographic index floor from March 9, 2024, to January 1, 2025.
- Extension of the incentive payments of participation in eligible alternative payment models from 2025 to 2026.
- Providing a temporary payment increase under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) to account for “exceptional circumstances and atypical time of enactment”. The conversion factor (CF) was increased by 1.68 percent, which restored some, but not all the 3.37 percent decrease as finalized in the 2024 MPFS final rule. Based on this increase, the new conversion factor is now $33.2875; and is effective for services furnished on or after March 9, 2024, and before January 1, 2025.
The package for the six remaining appropriations bills was signed into law on March 23, 2024. Totaling $1.2 trillion, this legislation completes the omnibus government funding for FY 2024. The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 (H.R. 2882) provides funding for the remaining federal agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Labor, Homeland Security and other priorities. The bills package omitted several mandatory health extenders that were previously under discussion, including site-neutral and hospital price transparency provisions. Changes to the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry and hospital payment reforms were also excluded due to the lack of member consensus. These legislative changes will most likely have to wait until the year end “lame duck” session.
