With Congress negotiating a new continuing resolution to fund the federal government when current spending authorization expires on December 20, the Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has written to federal lawmakers asking them to:

• Eliminate $8 billion in scheduled cuts to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH), which are made to hospitals that serve especially large numbers of economically vulnerable patients.
• Eliminate the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ planned 2.8 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors in 2025.
• Reject proposals that would reduce Medicare payments to hospital outpatient departments through the introduction of a site-neutral Medicare outpatient payment system because hospital outpatient departments are required by law to meet stricter, more costly regulatory requirements than other physician offices.

Learn more about the protections ASH seeks for community safety-net hospitals and why it seeks them from ASH’s letter to members of Congress.