AAMC - Association of American Medical Colleges
05/21/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/21/2026 11:40
AAMC Statement on Proposed Rule on Medicaid Supplemental Payments
- Press Release
AAMC Statement on Proposed Rule on Medicaid Supplemental Payments
May 21, 2026
Media Contacts
AAMC Chief Health Care Officer Jonathan Jaffery, MD, MS, MMM, FACP, issued the following statement on a new rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
"The AAMC is deeply concerned about the negative consequences that this new rule related to state directed payments (SDPs) proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would have on access to care for Medicaid enrollees and the harm these changes would cause to the vulnerable populations served by Medicaid: children, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and those in rural and underserved communities.
AAMC-member academic health systems and teaching hospitals, medical schools, and their affiliated physician faculty are committed to caring for Medicaid patients. These institutions provide nearly a third of all Medicaid inpatient care, underscoring the indispensable and outsized role they play in meeting the needs of our most vulnerable populations and communities.
The proposed rule, CMS-2449-P, implements provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) related to caps on SDPs. States use these key payments to invest in workforce development and rural health, improve access to specialized care, and address behavioral health needs. This rule goes beyond the statutory language by adding unnecessary restrictions to supplemental payments to providers that are not included in the OBBBA.
CMS' newly proposed restrictions on Medicaid supplemental payments to academic medical centers will result in further reductions to Medicaid programs that support initiatives critical to bolstering the health of vulnerable populations. Ultimately, the provisions of the proposed rule would exacerbate the funding gap to the detriment of care for complex patients, reducing access and coverage nationwide.
The AAMC urges CMS to focus on implementing the provisions of the OBBBA that are consistent with the statutory language and to withdraw the proposed provisions that go beyond the statutory framework."
The AAMC is a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the health of people everywhere through medical education, clinical care, biomedical research, and community collaborations. Its members are all 163 U.S. medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education; 13 Canadian medical schools accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools; nearly 500 academic health systems and teaching hospitals, including Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 70 academic societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC leads and serves America's medical schools, academic health systems and teaching hospitals, and the millions of individuals across academic medicine, including more than 210,000 full-time faculty members, 99,000 medical students, 162,000 resident physicians, and 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. Through the Alliance of Academic Health Centers International, AAMC membership reaches more than 60 international academic health centers throughout five regional offices across the globe. Learn more at aamc.org.
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