Medicare Site-Neutral Payments: A Commonsense, Bipartisan Reform

Please join us on July 29th from 10:00am-12:00pm EDT for our event "Medicare Site-Neutral Payments: A Commonsense, Bipartisan Reform" in the ballroom at:

Top of the Hill — 1 Constitution Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002

Please feel free to share this invite.

means equal payments for equivalent health care services regardless of the setting in which they are furnished. Medicare typically pays more for a medical treatment delivered at a hospital outpatient department than it does when it is delivered in a doctor’s office. One negative consequence of this disparity: hospitals often acquire physician practices to raise prices without increasing the quality of service.

Enacting site-neutral payment policies is a crucial step to reduce health care costs for patients and taxpayers. While the Obama and Trump administrations both supported site neutrality, more work remains to end excessive payments to hospitals, save money for hard-working Americans, and reduce incentives for harmful consolidation.

The event unites former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretaries Alex Azar and Kathleen Sebelius for a discussion moderated by Brian Blase of Paragon Health Institute. Despite serving under presidents of different parties, the secretaries recently published a STAT column where they agreed that enacting site-neutral payments in Medicare is a crucial step to reduce health care costs for patients and taxpayers.

Following the first panel, Paragon's Joe Albanese, Loren Adler of the Brookings Institution, Ben Ippolito of the American Enterprise Institute, Andrea Ducas of the Center for American Progress, and moderator Rachel Cohrs Zhang of STAT will discuss reasons for site neutral payments in Medicare as well as the tradeoffs involved. A networking reception with light refreshments will follow that discussion.

Alex Azar served as HHS Secretary from January 2018 to January 2021. Currently, Azar is a member of several corporate boards, an advisor to Foresite Capital, an adjunct professor at the University of Miami Herbert Business School, and a trustee of the Aspen Institute, the American Task Force On Lebanon’s Policy Advisory Board, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Future of Health Care Advisory Group, the advisory board of the National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation, and the Healthcare Leadership Council. He was the architect of Operation Warp Speed, which delivered COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in record time.

Kathleen Sebelius has been engaged in health policy for decades in the public and private sectors. She served in President Obama’s cabinet as HHS Secretary and was elected statewide four times in Kansas as Governor and Insurance Commissioner. Currently, Sebelius is the CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC. She chairs the board of Humacyte and serves on the boards of directors of Devoted Health, Exact Sciences, and Included Health. She continues policy work with KFF and co-leads the Health Strategy Group for the Aspen Institute.
Brian Blase, Ph.D., is the President of Paragon Health Institute. Brian was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC) from 2017-2019, where he coordinated the development and execution of numerous health policies and advised the President, NEC director, and senior officials. Brian guided the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s health care and entitlement program oversight and investigation efforts from 2011 to 2014, and then served as the Senate Republican Policy Committee’s health policy analyst from 2014 to 2015.

Joe Albanese is a Senior Policy Analyst with Paragon Health Institute. He comes to Paragon with several years of federal and nonprofit public policy experience. Prior to coming to Paragon, Joe worked as a Program Examiner on the Medicare team at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Trump and Biden administrations from 2018 to 2022. While a career employee at OMB, he provided oversight of the Medicare program’s funding and operations, reviewed regulations and other major administrative actions, and contributed to publications such as the annual President’s Budget for the U.S. Government. Joe’s analysis and recommendations in this role helped to shape policy decisions by White House and Department of Health and Human Services officials.

Loren Adler is a fellow and associate director at the Center on Health Policy. He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Ground Ambulance and Patient Billing, established by the No Surprises Act, and serves as an associate editor of the Health Affairs Scholar journal. His research focuses on a range of topics in health care economics and policy, including private equity and payer acquisitions of physician practices, provider consolidation, surprise billing, Medicare Advantage, and prescription drug pricing. Previously, Mr. Adler served as research director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and as a senior policy analyst for the Bipartisan Policy Center. Adler received his bachelor’s degree in mathematical economics from Wesleyan University and his M.S. in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrea Ducas is the vice president of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she leads the organization’s efforts related to health care and public health. Ducas has spent her career at the intersection of advancing policy and systems change and has extensive expertise in health care coverage and affordability; payment and care delivery system reform; and what it takes to support culture change in health care and public health. Prior to joining American Progress, Ducas was a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where she developed more than $150 million in strategic grants and investments to transform health and health care systems in the United States—including major advocacy initiatives; field-leading programs to anchor care delivery and payment changes in health equity; significant research into drivers of health; technical assistance and leadership support to state and federal policymakers; and widely used data platforms and frameworks to help communities and organizations set health priorities.

Benedic Ippolito is a senior fellow in economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. His research focuses on a variety of topics within health economics, including the pharmaceutical market, Medicare Advantage, provider pricing, and the role of health care costs in the personal finances of Americans. Dr. Ippolito has been published in a variety of leading peer-reviewed academic journals, including JAMA, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Health Affairs, and Georgetown Law Review. He frequently testifies before Congress and currently serves as an associate editor of Health Affairs Scholar. Ippolito holds a PhD and an MS in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA in economics and mathematics from Emory University.
Rachel Cohrs Zhang is the chief Washington correspondent for STAT, reporting on the intersection of politics, business, and health policy. She is also the author of the twice-weekly D.C. Diagnosis newsletter and leads STAT's D.C. bureau. She previously covered health care policy for Modern Healthcare and prescription drug pricing for Inside Health Policy. Rachel earned a degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.

This event is made possible with support from .

Host or Publisher Paragon Health Institute