Hospitals and health systems across the Arizona have extraordinarily risen to meet the needs of a quickly growing and aging state while under tremendous financial strain as unprecedented increases in costs related to staffing, supplies, medications, and equipment persist. Additionally, recent federal funding reductions are placing significant pressure on the healthcare delivery system by reducing Medicaid payments, increasing uncompensated care, and placing more strain on healthcare services.

We advocate to:

• Receive Commensurate Funding to eliminate the practice of the State over taxing hospitals for non-hospital Medicaid expenditures and to offset state general fund spending. We will continue to work with policymakers need to ensure that Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates are sufficient to cover the costs of care, allowing the continuance of providing high-quality services without financial
• Support measures for eligible recipients to navigate options and receive healthcare coverage to prevent gaps in healthcare access
• Support measures that widen Medicaid eligibility without assessing the hospitals, as this will increase access to preventive and necessary medical services for underserved populations, reducing long-term healthcare costs and improving community health outcomes. Ensure that essential health care services are available in all communities by improving vital state and federal funding for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Marketplaces.
• Ensure that Medicaid hospital supplemental payments maximize federal funding opportunities including Directed Payments and other payment options, Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH), as well as the financing sources that support them, continue to be available to help hospitals serve the Medicaid, uninsured and structurally marginalized populations in their communities.
• Protect the 340B program and oppose efforts to scale back, reduce the benefits, or expand the regulatory burden of the program.
• Ensure that additional Medicaid coverage requirements do not result in an increase in the hospital assessment.
• Streamline and coordinate quality measures in payment programs to focus on the measures that most improve patient health and outcomes while reducing unnecessary burden on providers and reducing the amount of hospital financing and payments put at risk. 
• Prevent further reductions in physician payments which may have a negative impact on patients’ access to certain services, support adjustments for inflation and rising input costs, and eliminate the burden placed on hospitals to subsidize the difference in federal reimbursement rates.
• Ensure patient access to primary care and other outpatient services by rejecting additional payment cuts that do not recognize legitimate differences among provider settings (also known as so-called site-neutral payment policies), as well as policies that restrict patient access to certain sites of care.
• Work with the hospital and health care industry, state and federal governments, and other stakeholders to advance and adopt cyber policies that are streamlined, effective and feasible to implement to reduce cybercrimes.
• Manage enterprise risk across the health care continuum by supporting legislation to curb lawsuit abuse, address the sharp increases in settlements and verdict awards, and reduce litigation costs. Recent judicial rulings in multiple cases have destabilized existing statutory protections for the healthcare industry and created uncertainty for healthcare providers.