AAMC Chief Health Care Officer Jonathan Jaffery, MD, MS, MMM, issued the following statement on the calendar year (CY) 2027 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) final rule released today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS):
“The AAMC is deeply disappointed in today’s CY 2027 hospital OPPS final rule, in which CMS finalized policies that will undermine the ability of academic health systems, teaching hospitals, and their faculty physicians to maintain access to care for the patients and communities they serve.
The rule will lead to a nearly five and a half billion dollar reduction in drug reimbursement to 340B hospitals. When that reduction is combined with cuts to imaging services provided at off-campus hospital outpatient departments and the accelerated recoupment of billions of dollars related to previous unlawful 340B hospital payment cuts, the impact of the rule will be devastating for patients.
Much to the disappointment of the AAMC, CMS has based its reimbursement to 340B hospitals on the results of a hasty and faulty survey, failing to follow the clear requirements of the Medicare statute. The drug payment cuts disproportionately affect and target non-profit and public hospitals serving low-income patients, while redistributing billions of dollars to hospitals that do not share the same safety-net and academic missions. These cuts threaten access to critical services made possible by the 340B program and will lead to worse health outcomes for patients. Every dollar that is cut from teaching hospitals is a dollar that can no longer support patient care, physician training, or investments in life-saving research
The AAMC remains committed to pursuing all available avenues to reverse these payment cuts.”