The AAMC Feb. 4 joined eight national hospital associations in signing a letter urging key Congressional committees to “oppose any additional hospital Medicare and Medicaid cuts to offset the cost of resolving the [Sustainable Growth Rate].”
Sent to the members of the Senate Finance, Senate Budget, House Budget, House Ways and Means, and House Energy and Commerce Committees, the letter applauds recent efforts to achieve a bipartisan compromise on legislation permanently resolving the problematic Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) methodology used to calculate Medicare physician payments.
The letter states that the hospital community “places great value in our relationship with physicians and in the need for a proper, permanent fix.” It adds that doctors “must be reimbursed properly for their work.”
However, it warns that Congress “cannot continually take from one provider to give to another and expect hospitals to maintain access to care for patients, reach new benchmarks in quality of care and efficiency, and implement the latest technology to care for our patients.”
Also signing the letter were the American Hospital Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, Federation of American Hospitals, Children’s Hospital Association, Catholic Health Association of the United States, Premier Health Alliance, VHA Inc., and National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems.