AHA shares views on MedPAC hospital proposals with House panel

At a hearing today on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s most recent hospital policy recommendations, House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) advocated for site-neutral payment cuts consistent with draft legislation the committee released last year. Brady and MedPAC Executive Director Mark Miller also discussed changes to indirect medical education and disproportionate share hospital payments. In a statement, AHA urged the committee not to put forward legislation promoting any new short-stay policy, calling it “premature” in light of MedPAC’s recommendation to do away with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’s two-midnight policy and the agency’s own recently proposed changes to the policy. In addition, the association said it supports MedPAC’s recommendation to base recovery auditor contingency fees in part on the contractor’s denial overturn rate, but urged Congress to support five additional actions to address systemic problems with the Recovery Audit Contractor program. With respect to graduate medical education, AHA said it opposes any proposals that would reduce direct GME or indirect medical education payments to teaching hospitals. It also urged Congress to support the creation of 15,000 new Medicare residency positions to ensure teaching hospitals can “continue training talented and diverse physicians.” Among other comments, AHA noted the need to consider the unique needs of each rural community when it comes to rural payment adjustments.