Carter urges American Medical Association to reverse harmful maternal health billing policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Earl L. "Buddy" Carter (R-GA) today sent a letter to the American Medical Association (AMA) calling on it to revoke a recent change to the way maternity services are billed that will impact health care affordability for mothers and babies.

The letter surrounds AMA replacing the bundled maternity care Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) framework with a system of individually billable services beginning January 1, 2027, despite concerns regarding affordability, care coordination, administrative burden, wasteful spending, and harmful effects on value-based care.

In the letter, Rep. Carter writes, "This is not a routine coding update. It is a fundamental restructuring of how maternity care is reimbursed throughout the American healthcare system."

Rep. Carter continues, "At its core, unbundling maternity care is inflationary. For decades, policymakers, providers, health plans, employers, and patient advocates have worked to move healthcare away from fragmented fee-for-service reimbursement and toward coordinated, value-based models that reward outcomes rather than volume. The existing global maternity codes reflect those principles by encouraging comprehensive management of pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care under a single bundled framework. I strongly urge the AMA to reconsider this misguided policy before it takes effect."

Read the full letter here.

BACKGROUND

The longstanding bundled maternity care CPT framework allows reimbursement for pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care under a coordinated global payment model. This approach promotes care coordination, simplifies billing, supports value-based care, and helps protect patients from unnecessary costs and administrative complexity.

The American Medical Association's new policy would replace that bundled framework with a fragmented system of individually billable maternity services beginning January 1, 2027. Unbundling maternity care would increase health care costs, create incentives for unnecessary visits and services, add administrative burdens for providers and health plans, and move the health care system away from coordinated, patient-centered care.

###