Fact Sheets
The American Hospital Association (AHA) fact sheets on important issues facing hospitals and health systems. Fact Sheets define the terms of issues facing hospitals and health systems and provide in-depth explanations of the AHA's position on these issues.
Hospitals and health systems are committed to empowering patients with all the information they need to live their healthiest lives. This includes ensuring they have access to accurate price information when seeking care. Most hospitals use cost estimate tools to provide patient-specific price…
Significant workforce shortages at facilities, such as those in post-acute and behavioral health, is making it more difficult for hospitals to efficiently and appropriately discharge patients. Hospitals have to bear the costs of caring for patients for those excess days without any reimbursement.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and for decades prior, Metropolitan Anchor Hospitals (MAHs) have provided critical health care and social services to diverse populations in the nation’s cities.
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government moved quickly to ensure hospitals and health systems were able to respond efficiently and effectively to a wave of unprecedented need.
The AHA urges Congress to pass legislation to improve the oversight of MA plans and the ability of CMS to enforce existing regulations that are intended to ensure appropriate beneficiary access to medically necessary services. Additionally, congressional action is needed to specifically prohibit MA…
AHA highlights the need to suspend Medicare sequester cuts for healthcare providers in this fact sheet on Medicare sequestration relief extension.
The Issue
The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have resulted in historic challenges for hospitals and health systems and the communities they serve in terms of recovery and rebuilding, placing unprecedented stress on the entire health care system and its financing.
The AHA urges Congress and the Biden Administration to extend the H@H program as currently authorized under the waiver to allow providers to continue to take steps to transform care delivery in a way that improves patient experience and outcomes while ensuring high patient safety. The Hospital…
America’s hospitals and health systems continue to deal with the difficult challenges of high inflation and ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, hospitals are facing significant increases in costs of labor from workforce shortages, drugs, equipment and supplies (including food…
America’s hospitals and health systems continue to face unprecedented financial pressures due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and current inflationary economy. Historic inflation has extended and heightened the already severe economic instability brought on by the pandemic resulting…