News: CMS pulls EMTALA guidance, multiple medical organizations release statements

Last week, CMS rescinded the 2022 Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) guidance issued by the Biden administration following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. EMTALA ensures that all people have access to emergency medical care, regardless of their ability to pay, by requiring Medicare-participating hospitals to screen and stabilize any patient who presents with an emergency medical condition; if it is unable to do so, the hospital must arrange an appropriate transfer.

In the press release, CMS said it will “continue to enforce EMTALA…[and] work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.”

The guidance clarified that clinicians who provided medical treatment, including abortions, to pregnant patients who present to emergency departments were protected under EMTALA, regardless of state law. It is unclear the extent to which the Trump administration will enforce the law, however, as it dropped a Biden-era federal lawsuit in March that sought exceptions for emergency care to Idaho’s strict abortion ban, Becker’s Hospital Review reported.

In response, some medical organizations have voiced concerns that rescinding this guidance may threaten patient safety. The American Hospital Association stated that hospitals take their EMTALA responsibilities seriously and that the law “requires caregivers to exercise their professional judgment about a patient’s care.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a practice advisory, which underscored the dangers of delayed abortion care in emergencies. Also, delegates have urged the American Medical Association to take a stronger stance against the rescineded federal guidance, arguing that it may lead to more preventable deaths among pregnant women.

According to Alison Tanner, an attorney at the National Women’s Law Center, physicians and hospitals are stuck between “a rock and a hard place” as they attempt to navigate differing state and federal laws.

“Doctors and hospitals are being put in an untenable position,” Tanner told ABC News. “On the one hand, they are faced with state laws that would potentially impose severe criminal sanctions for providing necessary emergency abortion care. And on the other hand, they have the federal law, EMTALA, which provides that both the federal government and individual patients can sue the hospital if they do not provide the necessary stabilizing care required under federal law.”

Editor’s note: To read Becker Hospital Review’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the CMS press release, click here. To learn more about EMTALA, click here.