Site-neutral Medicare outpatient payments would hinder access to care in many medically underserved inner-city and rural communities, and for this reason, the Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has asked the chairs of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the House Committee on Education and Workforce to amend proposed legislation that would introduce site-neutral Medicare payments for services provided in hospital outpatient departments to exempt safety-net hospitals from such a policy.

Community safety-net hospitals, ASH maintains in a letter to the committee chairs, use the higher payments hospital-based outpatient departments receive to underwrite the additional and continuing costs they incur establishing and operating medical practices in underserved communities – communities that otherwise find it difficult, if not impossible, to attract medical practices and clinics.

ASH urges the committee chairs to exempt from any future site-neutral payments all hospitals that meet the requirements of the current federal definition of a Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) hospital.

Learn more about why ASH has taken this position from this ASH letter to the House committee chairs.