The AHA today expressed support for legislation introduced last week by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) that would benefit rural hospitals and ban self-referral to new physician-owned hospitals. The Rural Hospital Assistance Act of 2008 (S. 3300) would benefit hospitals that are too large to be critical access hospitals but too small to be financially viable in the inpatient prospective payment system by exempting Medicare dependent-hospitals from the wage-adjusted payment rate and improving the low-volume adjustment so that hospitals with 800-1500 discharges can get as much as a 25% increase in their payments on a sliding scale. To offset the cost of the provisions, the bill would ban self-referral to new physician-owned hospitals. It also would create a prospective ban on physician self-referral to hospitals in which a physician has an ownership interest. The AHA letter of support can be found online.