The Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) announced its support for the Outpatient Surgery Access Act of 2026. ASCA states that the legislation, if enacted, would “stabilize ASC reimbursements” by requiring CMS to use “the same inflation factor used to update hospital payment rates,” while also removing a “budget neutrality adjustment that increasingly depresses ASC rates and discourages the migration of procedures to the lower-cost ASC setting.”
The legislation was introduced this week by U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). U.S. Representatives Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) and John Larson (D-CT) introduced identical legislation in the U.S. House (H.R. 8091, read the full bill here) in March. ASCA states that “by introducing this companion bill, the push to protect patient access to affordable outpatient care officially becomes a bipartisan, bicameral effort.”
“Surgery centers perform millions of essential elective procedures for Medicare beneficiaries every year,” stated ASCA CEO Bill Prentice. “Ensuring an accurate and stable payment system is key to increasing patient access to low-cost, high-quality surgery centers.”
ASCA noted that CMS aligned the ASC and HOPD payment systems in 2009, but until 2019 used the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) to make annual updates to ASC rates, which ASCA has maintained is “not an accurate reflection of the costs of operating a healthcare facility.” HOPD rates, meanwhile, are annually updated using “the hospital market basket price index, which incorporates prices for healthcare-related inputs such as healthcare wages, medical equipment and malpractice insurance,” stated ASCA.
In 2019, CMS agreed to trial use of the hospital market basket price index for ASC payments, but the trial is set to expire at the end of 2026.
