Great News! Medicare Audiology Bill Introduced in House
November 20, 2023
The House version of the Medicare Audiology Access Improvement Act (H.R. 6445/S. 2377) has been introduced by Representative Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA).
This bill would ensure that Medicare covers both diagnostic and treatment services that audiologists are uniquely qualified to provide while removing the physician order requirement so seniors can access these services more easily. The bill would also reclassify audiologists as practitioners under the Medicare statute, enabling permanent telehealth authority.
The introduction of the House bill follows momentum from the other side of Capitol Hill when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) highlighted the Medicare Audiology Access Improvement Act during a Senate Finance Committee hearing [video from Senate Recording Studio, 11/8/2023], and secured a commitment from the panel’s leaders to advance the bill in the future. The Senate bill already has 10 bipartisan cosponsors, the most it has ever had.
ASHA President Bob Augustine was quoted in Rep. Bilirakis’s press release introducing H.R. 6445, noting that “ASHA looks forward to continued collaboration with these leaders and our allied partners to enact this bill as soon as possible—and to remove unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that prevent seniors from getting the hearing and balance care they need, when they need it.”
We need your help to build on this progress! Urge your members of Congress to support this bill by visiting ASHA’s Take Action site and sending a prewritten message.
Thank you for helping to amplify the voices of audiologists on Capitol Hill!
Questions?
Please contact Josh Krantz, ASHA's director of federal affairs, health care, at jkrantz@asha.org.
