AHA Site-Neutral Advocacy Alliance Bulletin - June 25, 2024

Setting the Record Straight: NYT Publishes AHA Letter on Site-neutral Op-ed

Wanted to make sure you saw that The New York Times today published a letter to the editor from Rick responding to a June 17 op-ed, “Even Doctors Like Me Are Falling Into This Medical Bill Trap.”

“So-called ‘site-neutral’ policies fail to recognize that not all sites of care are created equal,” the letter states. “Current payment rates appropriately take into account that hospitals treat sicker, lower-income and more complex patients. They are also held to higher regulatory and safety standards, and provide unique benefits to their communities, such as 24/7 standby capacity for emergencies.

“Facility fees allow a hospital to continue to provide services that only hospitals provide and for which they are not fully reimbursed, including burn units, critical care services and neonatal care. In fact, Medicare paid hospitals just 82 cents for every dollar spent caring for patients, resulting in nearly $100 billion in underpayments in 2022 alone.”

The full letter to the editor is available here. We will be sharing the letter across our communications channels. If you have any questions, please contact Jason Kleinman, AHA’s director of federal relations, at jkleinman@aha.org.