Letters

Throughout the year, the AHA comments on a vast number of proposed and interim final rules put forth by the federal regulatory agencies. In addition, AHA communicates with federal legislators to convey the hospital field's position on potential legislative changes that would impact patients and patient care. Below are the most recent letters from the AHA to these bodies.

Latest

The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Risk Assessment Act of 2023 would require a comprehensive risk assessment of the entire U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain. This overarching project will help provide critical information necessary to mitigate and prevent drug supply shortages.
Hospitals and health systems share concern about chronic and increasing drug shortages that have serious consequences for patient safety, quality of care and access to therapies. Addressing drug shortages is complex and costly to hospitals and health systems in terms of staff time and other resources required to manage the shortages.
AHA remains deeply concerned over the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) policies related to disproportionate share hospital payments in the agency’s final Inpatient Prospective Payment System rule for fiscal year (FY) 2024.
HHS must not pursue any “budget neutrality adjustment” in the final rule. At the very least, it must pursue a far smaller one than the proposed $7.8 billion “adjustment.”
AHA is greatly disappointed that HHS chose to propose “budget neutrality adjustments” to offset this legally-required remedy. The statutes that HHS relies on in its proposed rule do not give it the authority to make a “budget neutrality adjustment.”
AHA and 48 national organizations' letter to Senators Klobuchar and Collins in support of the Conrad State 30 and Physician Access Reauthorization Act (S.665).
AHA and 48 other national associations express support of House and Senate legislation, the Conrad State 30 and Physician Access Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4942, S. 665).
The AHA joins the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations in urging the Federal Trade Commission to extend for at least 60 days the comment period for their draft guidance revising how they review mergers and acquisitions to determine compliance with federal antitrust laws.
Our organizations urge CMS to not proceed with implementing the prior authorization (PA) attachment standards provisions of the NPRM due to conflicting regulatory proposals that would set the stage for multiple PA electronic standards and workflows and create the very same costly burdens that administrative simplification seeks to alleviate.