AHA urges MedPAC to recommend adjusting FY 2024 market basket update

As the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission considers Medicare payment adequacy, AHA today encouraged the panel to recommend adding a one-time retrospective adjustment to the fiscal year 2024 market basket updates to help hospitals and health systems remain financially viable.
 
“Health care providers continue to struggle with persistently higher costs and additional downstream challenges that have emerged because of the lasting and durable impacts of high inflation and the pandemic,” AHA wrote. “We urge MedPAC to consider these dynamics on Medicare payment updates for FY 2024.”
 
Among other comments, AHA urged the commission to consider an alternative approach, AHA's Metropolitan Anchor Hospital designation, to supporting safety-net hospitals and health systems; to abandon further recommendations regarding site-neutral payment policies; and to consider the potential impact of certain primary care payment proposals on specialty care shortages and disparities.