As budget negotiations grind on, about 100 members of the American Hospital Association met with their representatives and senators on Capitol Hill this week. Richard Pollack, executive vice president at the AHA, said the hospital providers focused on three messages in their meetings. They urged lawmakers to reject arbitrary Medicare and Medicaid cuts as a way to fund other legislation or reduce the deficit, support pending bills that provide relief to hospitals (such as the recovery audit contractor relief bill in both chambers), and extend Medicare programs that have expired or soon will expire.
Hospitals are especially nervous about additional reimbursement cuts, Pollack said, because they're already preparing for the next stage of meaningful use and for the looming ICD-10 coding changeover, implementing the value-based purchasing program, absorbing readmission penalties and trying to help patients enroll in Obamacare coverage, among other things.
“When we talk about how we've already made enough budget reductions in our area, I think it's fair to say there's a real frustration and people are being able to powerfully articulate that on the Hill,” Pollack said.
Hospitals have every reason to be worried, given that benefit programs are the likely target in the budget talks, according to Eric Zimmerman, a partner at McDermott, Will and Emery who specializes in Medicare reimbursement. “I think what many in the health community don't appreciate is that if the budget conference comes to some terms around reapportioning sequester, it's only going to be more exposure for Medicare, not less,” he said.
While Zimmerman said he doesn't expect lawmakers to hike the 2% sequester cut for Medicare providers next year, he does anticipate there will be more targeted reductions in certain healthcare segments. “It could be good news for some elements of the health industry,” he said. “But for some—like labs and post-acute—it's likely to be a worse scenario.”
While it remains unclear when the Senate plans to recess, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made it clear in his weekly news briefing Thursday that House members will leave next Friday as scheduled. Boehner also said that while he hopes Ryan and Murray can reach an agreement that both chambers can pass, the budget conference still has work to do.
“Paul Ryan came in today and gave us an update on where they were,” Boehner said. “I'm hopeful that they'll be able to work this out, but there's clearly no agreement.”
