AHA Sends Second Appeal to Trump

By John Commins, HealthLeaders Media

Pleading that the nation’s hospitals face a “substantial and unsustainable” regulatory burden, the American Hospital Association presented an eight-page list of remedies to the president-elect.

For the second time in three days, on Friday the American Hospital Association has provided President-elect Donald Trump with a lengthy list of requests for regulatory reforms to scale back bureaucratic red tape.

“Reducing administrative complexity in healthcare would save billions of dollars annually and allow providers to spend more time on patients, not paperwork,” AHA CEO and President Rick Pollack said in letter dated December 2nd.

“The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services released 43 proposed and final rules affecting hospitals and health systems in the first 10 months of this year alone, comprising almost 21,000 pages of text,” Pollack wrote. “In addition to the sheer volume, the scope of changes required by the new regulations is beginning to outstrip the field’s ability to absorb them.”

Because the rules are promulgated by CMS and other agencies within HHS, Pollack said the president-elect could take immediate action administratively.

Among the 33 reform actions listed in the letter, the AHA wants the Trump administration to:

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