H.R. 2902: SOAR Act of 2025

H.R. 2902, the SOAR Act of 2025, takes oxygen out of Medicare's competitive bidding program starting January 1, 2026. In areas where bidding set the rates, payment freezes at the December 31, 2025 fee schedule and then rises each year with inflation. Rural areas, Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories get their own formula that blends a national price with the local rate.

Liquid oxygen, the lightweight portable kind that lets patients stay mobile, gets special treatment. The bill sets a payment floor at 200% of the 2015 Medicare equipment fee schedule, updated for inflation through 2025, and adds extra payment for patients who need high flow rates of 6 liters per minute or more. Until Medicare builds the new system, an interim rate at the same 200% floor takes effect.

A year after the bill becomes law, suppliers would have to earn their payment. To get paid, they would have to deliver on fourteen specific duties: an in-person evaluation, 24-hour on-call coverage, infection-control instruction, equipment and alarm checks, safety sweeps for fire and fall hazards, and help finding a supplier when a patient travels. Respiratory therapists also get formal Medicare recognition and a separate monthly payment for assessing and monitoring patients.

The bill also rewrites the paperwork and the patient's standing. Doctors would use a standard electronic form, and Medicare could not demand their full medical-record notes on top of it. Patients would get a plain annual notice explaining the 36-month rental clock and a monthly note counting down how many months of copays remain. They would also gain enforceable rights: choosing their supplier, refusing treatment, getting broken equipment fixed quickly, a power-outage backup plan, and 30 days' written notice before a supplier can drop them unless there is an immediate safety threat.