Two former leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services under two presidents have proposed a solution to reducing healthcare costs that should appeal to both political parties in Congress.
Alex Azar, the HHS secretary under Donald Trump, and Kathleen Sebelius, who led the department under Barack Obama, urged Congress in an op-ed Thursday for STAT, a healthcare media outlet, to adopt policies advancing site-neutral payments to save patients and taxpayers money.
"When a free-standing physician office is purchased by a hospital system, what you pay for an X-ray, injection, or office visit goes up because that office now appears on paper as a 'hospital site' — even though nothing about the location or the services provided has changed in the real world," they wrote. "That designation allows the new hospital system owners to bill higher rates for the services performed in the office, which in turn results in higher prices.
"Enacting site-neutral payments would fix this problem and ensure that hospitals are no longer able to charge more for services delivered in physician offices and outpatient clinics that they purchase."
Obama and Trump encouraged site-neutral payment policies during their administrations. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 implemented site-neutral payment reform for Medicare, they wrote. Advancing a site-neutral payment policy was also a guiding principle of the Trump administration, including proposing expanding the budget act's site-neutral policy to previously exempted facilities, issuing rules requiring hospital price transparency, and supporting legislation to prohibit surprise medical billing.
"Work remains, however, and the current Congress has another shot," they wrote. "Last June, the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, a nonpartisan group of experts that advises Congress, recommended that lawmakers move to advance site-neutral payment for a select set of low-complexity medical services such as office visits, X-rays, minor procedures, and drug injections.
"These recommendations could result in billions in savings for patients and taxpayers while reducing perverse incentives for consolidation.
"Site-neutral payments represent a commonsense policy that will reduce costs for patients and taxpayers. It will diminish perverse incentives for consolidation and incentivize care delivery in the right place for the right price. It's a no-brainer that we believe could reduce costs for patients and payers."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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