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Mergers and acquisitions are important tools that some hospitals use to manage financial pressures and increase access to care for patients, AHA told the Senate Finance Committee in a statement submitted for a  June 8 on consolidation and corporate ownership in health care. 
  
“Merging with a hospital system can help some hospitals ease these financial burdens and improve patient care by providing scale to help reduce costs associated with obtaining medical services, supplies and prescription drugs, and enable health systems to reduce other operational costs,” AHA wrote. “Perhaps most important, mergers can allow struggling hospitals to remain open. Without mergers, hospitals could shutter, patients could lose access to care, and communities could suffer. This is particularly important for rural hospitals, where mergers and acquisitions have played a critical role in preserving access to care for these patients and communities.”  
 
AHA also expressed its opposition to legislative proposals supporting additional site-neutral payment cuts, which would threaten access to care. 
  
Testifying at the hearing were Chris Thomas, president and CEO of Community Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo.; an associate professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and an associate professor of public health and economics at Yale University; and executives from the American Academy of Family Physicians and Peterson Center on Healthcare.