Introducing site-neutral Medicare outpatient payments would jeopardize access to care in rural, inner-city, and other areas that community safety-net hospitals serve, so the Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has asked House members to reject a current proposal to introduce such payments.

In a message to all House members, ASH writes that the higher payments Medicare makes to hospital-based outpatient departments enables community safety-net hospitals to establish, staff, and operate clinics in underserved inner-city and rural communities and that the loss of those payments would reduce access to care in already-underserved areas across the country.

To address this problem, ASH urges Congress to exempt objectively identified community safety-net hospitals – those formally designated “Medicaid disproportionate share hospitals” (Medicaid DSH hospitals) – from site-neutral payments for care provided to Medicare patients at hospital-based outpatient departments.

Learn more from ASH’s message to House members.