Safety Net Association of PA

You Set the Agenda

SNAP's agenda and positions are developed by its members: the leaders of hospitals whose interests are fundamentally the same as yours. When you have a seat at the SNAP table, you make the decisions on our agenda and positions.

Focused Advocacy

SNAP has only one purpose: to represent the distinct needs of safety-net hospitals. We are highly focused; SNAP does not seek to be all things to all hospitals or to take the place of your other trade groups.

Medical malpractice? Not specifically a safety-net issue. IT issues? The resurrection of certificate of need? Your other groups are addressing those issues for you.

On the other hand, inadequate Medical Assistance payments? Outdated DSH criteria? Changes in policy regarding payment for Medical Assistance patients readmitted to the hospital? Now those issues are why SNAP exists and those are the kinds of issues on which we focus. Concentrating on just a few issues makes SNAP the best value in hospital advocacy in Pennsylvania today.

Your Issues Take Center Stage

Virtually every hospital has experienced the frustration of seeing one of its trade associations fail to take a stand on an issue of importance to that hospital because the association's members come down on both sides of that particular issue. Under such circumstances, it is unreasonable to expect the association to act. That does not happen with SNAP because our entire membership is built around just a few issues of interest to all of our members. If it matters to you, it matters to other safety-net hospitals, leaving us no need to compromise for a “greater good.” Your dues buy you an association that's your advocate on all of the relevant issues, not just some of them.

Medical Assistance Payment Reform: Because No One Else's Stake is as Great

Pennsylvania's Medical Assistance payment system is a dinosaur: old, outdated, and not up to the task of coping with today's environment. It needs major changes, and SNAP is the only group advocating that such changes are needed even if new money is not available. The current payment system's chief flaw is the irrational manner in which it distributes limited state resources, and SNAP has long advocated that those resources be redirected to where the need is greatest - that is, to Pennsylvania's safety-net hospitals. In the current economic environment, however, redistribution means payment redesign almost certainly would be a zero-sum game, which understandably leaves other hospital groups unable to support much-needed redesign because it would hurt many of their members. That's why safety-net hospitals need SNAP: because it is the only group with the kind of unambiguous, uncompromised mission that ensures its ability to advocate the kinds of Medical Assistance changes that its members need most.