In a letter sent October 28, 2022 to Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester, Senator Tom Carper, and Senator Chris Coons, DHA urged that Congress include several health priorities in any year-end legislative package.

Those priorities include:

• Prevent any further damaging cuts to health programs, including stopping the forthcoming 4% Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) sequester; 
• Establish a temporary per diem payment targeted to hospitals to address the issue of hospitals not being able to discharge patients to post-acute care or behavioral facilities because of staffing shortages;
• Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions to address the need for additional physicians in the U.S.; 
• Extend, or make permanent, the Low-volume Adjustment and the Medicare-dependent Hospital programs — critical rural programs that are due to expire on Dec. 16; 
• Make permanent the expansion of telehealth services and extend the hospital-at-home program; 
• Finalize passage of the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act, which streamlines prior authorization requirements under Medicare Advantage plans; and, 
• Create a special statutory designation for certain hospitals that serve marginalized urban communities.