Hospitals, insurers at odds over premium payments

Hospitals don’t like that. So the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Association of American Medical Colleges penned a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services arguing for a return to the three-month grace period.

While they began by defending the longer grace period as a compassionate helping hand to “low-income individuals … who may experience temporary difficulty in paying premiums,” they’re also worried about their own pocketbooks.

“CMS’s approach also unfairly burdens providers who treat these patients because they will not get paid by the (insurance company) for covered services and will have to wait to try to obtain direct payment from the patient,” the hospital groups wrote. “The reality is that it will be extremely difficult to collect payment from low-income patients who already are having trouble paying.”

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