Essential hospitals operate large ambulatory networks to bring care to people where they live and work. These clinics often are the only source of primary and specialty care for medically and socially complex patients. This reach into communities is key to ensuring continuity of care for patients whose health is shaped by inadequate transportation and housing and other social risk factors. Onerous “site-neutral” payment policies jeopardize access to care by making clinic expansion into underserved communities financially unsustainable.
Proposals from the previous session of Congress, including the House-passed “Lower Costs, More Transparency Act,” would expand site-neutral payment cuts to drug administration services in HOPDs, jeopardizing access to vital care, such as outpatient cancer treatment, in underserved communities. The cuts proposed in this bill would disproportionately harm essential hospitals.
We urge Congress to protect access to care in underserved communities and support the safety net by rejecting site-neutral policies.
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