Outpatient Payment Changes Threaten Access to Care in Underserved Areas

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, which are simply Medicare cuts to hospitals, jeopardize access to care by making clinic expansion into underserved communities financially unsustainable.

"Site-neutral" policies fail to account for fundamental differences in the cost of providing care in hospital settings and the additional benefits of doing so, and they will compromise access to ambulatory care.

We urge Congress to protect access to care in underserved communities and support the safety net by rejecting "site-neutral" payment cuts.