Senate Amends Bill That Would Threaten Off-Site Medical Facilities

The Indiana Senate Monday passed an amendment to prevent some medical facilities from seeing a reduction in reimbursements. The language came as an update to legislation on surprise billing. 

The Indiana Hospital Association, IHA, had urged lawmakers to amend HB 1004. IHA says if senators did not change the bill, it would reduce reimbursements for care given outside of main hospital campuses.

IHA President Brian Tabor says this would affect hospital outpatient centers and off-site locations because they would be billed at a different rate.

Speaking before the vote, Tabor said lawmakers should return to language in a prior bill that died in committee.

READ MORE: All IN Conversation: Evansville Issues & Ales, Health Care Costs And Surprise Billing

“I think it’s a solution that meets the goals of this session, it is more workable, it has less administrative issues and it will avoid the immediate harm that we heard about today,” Tabor says.

He says without the fix, it threatened rural hospitals.

Several senators acknowledged they did not fully understand the original language when they voted it into the bill.  

Hundreds of hospital representatives from across the state gathered at the Statehouse earlier Monday to protest the legislation.

Contact Darian at dbenson@wfyi.org or follow her on Twitter at @helloimdarian.