Hospitals are confronting the challenges posed by a post-pandemic healthcare system. They are treating sicker patients, facing critical workforce shortages, and experiencing grave financial headwinds and inflationary pressures.
Through it all, hospitals are steadfast, providing high-quality 24-hour care for everyone who walks through their doors, supporting an exemplary healthcare workforce, focusing on making Connecticut’s healthcare system more equitable, and driving world-class innovation right here in Connecticut.
Adding administrative burdens and imposing new reporting requirements on healthcare providers will only increase costs, further strain hospitals, and threaten access to critical healthcare services.
Government bureaucracy is not best positioned to oversee healthcare decisions; look no further than the alarming underfunding of Medicaid, which has hurt vital services, especially in underserved communities, and has worsened healthcare affordability by shifting costs to those with commercial insurance.
Connecticut lawmakers should reject policies that would implement rigid and needless burdens on local hospitals – burdens that don’t help patients.
A new proposal would give the state the ability to determine when hospitals can declare emergency department diversions, interfering in the care-related decisions of care providers in emergency situations while offering no assistance in solving the underlying problem (SB 9).
Instead of making the CON process work better for patients and communities and streamlining the process, as lawmakers have long advocated, the state is pursuing policies that would create more barriers and delays that interfere with healthcare access, affordability, and jobs (SB 9).
Impractical, premature proposed modifications to the state’s healthcare cost growth benchmark would rely on inaccurate data to penalize strained hospitals, making it more challenging to achieve affordability goals (HB 5054). Connecticut must not grant more authority to a broken system that is using flawed data to make recommendations and decisions that impact healthcare. Learn more.
Proposals to implement new, extensive state reporting on the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program (SB 241) would do nothing to help the state’s low-income residents and communities that 340B savings enable hospitals to support. New hospital financial reporting requirements (SB 9) would also fail to move the needle on solutions for patients, instead adding needless, time-consuming reporting about financial challenges that hospitals have been sounding the alarm about for years. Instead of offering solutions, these proposals offer nothing but additional, unnecessary burdens.
Reforms are needed to stop delays and excessive administrative burden that delay care and hamper jobs development.
In Connecticut, Medicaid reimburses only 62 cents for every dollar spent providing care, and Medicare reimburses only 74 cents on the dollar. This puts enormous financial strain on caregivers, and shifts costs to other patients.
Continue collaborative efforts to stop workplace violence and bolster hospitals’ recruitment and retention efforts to address the critical healthcare workforce shortage.
Including burdensome prior authorization policies, that reduce access to care
It’s time to ensure equitable access to healthcare for all Connecticut residents.
Questions? Contact CHA Government Relations at 203.294.7310