AHA blog: Washington Post editorial on site-neutral deeply flawed and poorly-timed

A March 14 editorial in the Washington Post calling for Congress to enact so-called site-neutral policies is “deeply flawed and incredibly out of touch with the realities hospitals and health systems are experiencing right now,” AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack wrote March 15 in a blog post.

“First, the editorial was published while many hospitals and health systems have not been reimbursed for weeks for care they have provided to patients. On February 21, Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, was the victim of the most significant and consequential cyberattack on the U.S. health care system in American history. Since this attack, billions of dollars have stopped flowing to providers, thereby threatening the financial viability of hospitals and health systems.

“Besides the editorial’s clumsy timing, it also fundamentally misses the point that all sites of care are not created equal. We cannot do away with a payment differential that is appropriate for services provided in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) that care for everyone, maintain emergency stand-by services, take care of more complicated patients, and have to meet tougher regulatory requirements than other sites of care.”

See the full blog post for four reasons why these policies are misguided and would reduce access to 24/7 care for patients and communities.