Medicare pays doctors more and protects small doctor offices.
S. 5672 — Patients First Act of 2026 · Filed by Roger Marshall (R-KS) · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill raises how much Medicare pays doctors. It creates a new way to pay doctor offices based on patient count. It replaces the old quality measure system with POINTS. It sets up a task force of doctors to help pick quality measures. It protects small doctor offices from being bought by big firms.
Who it affects
Patients may get better access to primary care doctors. Small doctor offices with 15 or fewer doctors get new shields. Medicare will spend more money on doctor pay.
One thing to notice
The bill spends more Medicare money on doctor pay. It does not cut money from other parts of the program.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- Medicare — The federal government's health insurance program for people 65 and older.
- POINTS — The new system this bill creates to measure how well doctors work.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (50,094 characters) on Oct 13, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Medicare pays doctors more and protects small doctor offices.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s5672/simple Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.