ASH has submitted written comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in response to that agency’s proposed CY 2026 Medicare outpatient prospective payment regulation, which presents how CMS envisions paying providers for Medicare-covered outpatient services and regulating those services in the coming year.

In its letter, the Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals notes that CMS’s proposed increase of 2.4 percent in Medicare outpatient payments would be more than negated by other policy changes in the regulation and very harmful for community safety-net hospitals.  ASH also expresses concern about CMS’s proposed acceleration of 340B repayment, calling for the agency to slow the pace of that repayment, and counsels against the proposed three-year phase-out of Medicare’s inpatient-only surgical procedures list, citing health and safety concerns.

ASH’s letter also addresses CMS proposals involving volume control policy for medication administration, hospital price transparency, and changes in CMS’s Medicare quality reporting programs.

Learn more from ASH’s comment letter to CMS.