1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Emergency Care Improvement Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) To expand provider capacity to respond to the COVID–19 pandemic, in April of 2020 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a waiver allowing freestanding emergency centers (FECs) to enroll as Medicare-certified hospitals and receive Medicare reimbursement for the duration of the COVID–19 public health emergency. (2) FECs are fully licensed emergency departments that are staffed by both Emergency Medicine trained physicians and registered nurses who are on-site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and possess licensed pharmacies, clinical laboratories, and advanced imaging services. FECs are State-licensed, and adhere to the same standards and provide the same level of care as Hospital Based Emergency Rooms, including State EMTALA regulations on treating all patients. (3) Over 110 FECs, mostly located in Texas, have enrolled and provided high-quality emergency services for all kinds of emergency conditions at significant savings to the Medicare program and to thousands of Medicare beneficiaries. (4) An actuarial study of Medicare claims data found that FECs did not increase overall utilization of emergency care services and saved the Medicare program 21.8 percent in lower emergency care payments for patients of similar acuity. 3. Coverage of freestanding emergency centers under medicare and medicaid (a) Coverage under medicare part B Section 1832(a)(2) of the Social Security Act ( 42 U.S.C. 1395k(a) ) is amended— (1) in subparagraph (I), by striking and at the end; (2) in subparagraph (J), by striking the period at the end and inserting ; and