Hospitals and other health care providers are trying to keep federal agencies from classifying them as government contractors or subcontractors because they participate in government health plan provider networks.
Members of a House Education & the Workforce subcommittee discussed the health care provider status bill, H.R. 3633, at a hearing this week.
The bill would keep the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from classifying a health care provider as a federal contractor or subcontractor because it received a payment from the federal government, regardless of the reimbursement methodology.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and witnesses supporting the bill said H.R. 3633 is necessary because OFCCP officials have expressed the opinion that providers serving patients in Medicare, Federal Employees’ Health Benefit Program and TRICARE military health care program managed care networks are federal contractors.
OFCCP enforces the federal anti-discrimination laws that apply to federal contractors.
Curt Kirschner testified on behalf of the American Hospital Association that providers are already subject to many regulations and fear OFCCP could convert them into federal contractors overnight, without advance notice, through a “jurisdictional land grab.”