Illegal Alien Patient Reporting Act

Key Points

• Hospitals that take federal health program money would have to ask every patient about their immigration status when they are admitted or visit the emergency room.
• The form must tell patients their answer won't change their care unless they're suspected of or charged with certain state, local, or immigration-related federal crimes, in which case status can be reported to law enforcement.
• Every quarter, hospitals must send HHS and DHS a count of patients by immigration category, including citizens, green card holders, visa holders, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants, plus how many refused to answer.
• Hospitals that don't follow these rules can be excluded from all federal health care programs, which includes Medicare and Medicaid, putting major funding at risk for noncompliant hospitals.
• Each year, HHS must send Congress a report on the aggregated data plus information on the costs of uncompensated care for people not lawfully in the country and how that affects hospitals' finances.
• The bill specifically bars regulators from requiring hospitals to hand over patient names or other personal identifying information as part of this reporting.