Rural Hospital Closure Relief Act of 2025

This bill would let more hospitals qualify as "critical access hospitals," which is a special status that allows them to receive different payments from Medicare. Right now, hospitals mostly need to be far away from other hospitals or have been certified by their state before 2006 to get this status. Under this bill, small rural hospitals could also qualify if they serve areas with doctor shortages or many low-income or Medicare patients, have lost money for two years in a row, and have a plan to improve their finances and provide needed services. This new option would last for nine years, and government agencies would be required to study the effects of the change and figure out how these newly qualified hospitals could move to different Medicare payment systems.

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