Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act of 2025

H.R. 4002, the Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act of 2025, would repeal specific health care reform changes to the Medicare exception that governs physician referrals to hospitals. Specifically, it targets sections 6001 and 10601 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and section 1106 of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), restoring the provisions as if those reform-era changes had never been enacted. In effect, the bill would roll back modifications made by the ACA/HCERA to how the Medicare program handles the “exception” to the prohibition on certain physician referrals to hospitals, returning to the pre-reform framework. What this means in practice is that the rules governing when physicians can refer patients to hospitals with financial relationships to the referring physicians would revert to the earlier baseline. The bill’s stated aim in its title suggests a goal of improving patient access to higher-quality care, but the specific policy shift is a rollback of reform-era changes, not a new expansion of patient protections or care standards.