Medicare Program; Rural Health Clinics: Amendments to Participation Requirements and Payment Provisions; and Establishment of a Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement Program; Suspension of Effectiveness

This interim final rule with comment period revises the rural health clinic (RHC) regulations to revert to those provisions set forth in regulations before publication of the December 24, 2003 RHC final rule. That final rule implemented certain provisions of the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 to establish a process and criteria for disqualifying from the RHC program clinics that no longer meet basic location requirements (rural and medically underserved), and to require RHCs to establish quality assessment and performance improvement programs. That rule also prohibited "commingling" (the use of the space, professional staff, equipment, and other resources) of an RHC with another entity. [In addition, it addressed comments on the February 28, 2000 proposed rule. Since the publication of the RHC final rule exceeded the 3-year timeline for finalizing proposed rules set by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, we are suspending the effectiveness of the current provisions by removing the RHC provisions set forth in the December 2003 final rule and reverting to those RHC provisions previously in effect.] We intend to reissue new proposed and final RHC rules to reinstate the current provisions. However, these revisions do not impact the effectiveness of the self-implementing provisions of the BBA or any provisions we had previously implemented or enforced through program memoranda.