Please e-sign this bill to ensure the low costs and availability of birth centers across the US!!!
TBC just sent me this e-mail:
The Birth Center e-communications
918 County Line Road
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
(610) 525-6086
www.thebirthcenter.org
The Birth Center, an independent nonprofit organization, is the premier community resource whose midwives and nurses provide women’s health, birthing, and related services in a nurturing, home-like, family oriented setting. Our preeminent services and educational programs strengthen women of all ages and their families, empowering them to be active participants in healthcare decision-making throughout their lives. We welcome all women who desire our model of care regardless of their ability to pay.
Take Action Today to Ensure Access to Birth Centers
Dear Christine and Dave,
As a friend of TBC, we are asking for your help to preserve access to high quality, cost effective maternity care provided in out-of-hospital birth centers – not just in Bryn Mawr - but across the country!
Please take a moment to support a new bill to ensure that Medicaid programs reimburse birth centers for care of pregnant women who have Medicaid coverage.
After reimbursing birth centers for decades, Medicaid programs have begun to withhold payment because the relevant federal statute does not authorize coverage. A Texas judge recently ruled that from September 1 onward the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not have to pay its federal share of Medicaid fees to the state's 42 birth centers, a ruling that CMS could apply to the entire country.
Many birth centers depend on Medicaid payments to continue to operate, and this will severely impact their ability to remain open. In addition, private insurance companies often decide to follow CMS’s lead in setting policies. This could mean that reimbursement for birth centers could essentially disappear, making birth center care prohibitively expensive for most privately insured clients, as well.
Please join the American Association of Birth Centers, TBC and many others and sign the letter encouraging members of Congress to give CMS the authority to pay for birth center care — an essential option for women and babies and a great value to taxpayers. The link is below.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=XGO2ZxaqKojCOGBg_2fBVxWg_3d_3d
We appreciate your efforts to ensure the choice of birth center care remains available to all women.
Thank you for taking action!
The Birth Center