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AHA Officials' Comments
AHA President Richard Umbdenstock in a statement said, "In its final rule, CMS cut more than $20 billion in Medicare payments for hospital inpatient services, further depleting scarce health care resources." He added, "CMS struck an unnecessary and demoralizing blow against hospitals' ability to care for patients across America." Umbdenstock said, "This misguided policy wrongly assumes major changes in how hospitals categorize patients for payment purposes, penalizing hospitals in advance based on a 'guess' by CMS."
AHA says that payment adjustments should be made only after any upcoding activities have been observed. Don May, AHA's vice president for policy, said the group would pursue legislation to block the coding adjustment but did not specify by what legislative vehicle ( CQ HealthBeat, 8/2).

AHA Criticizes CMS' Plan To Reduce Inpatient Medicare Reimbursements