Bill > HR7912

This bill, known as the Neonatal Care Transparency Act of 2026, requires hospitals and healthcare practitioners who provide obstetric services to disclose their policies regarding life-saving care for premature infants. Specifically, hospitals must publicly state if there's a minimum gestational age for providing such care, whether decisions are made case-by-case, and their process for transferring mothers and infants to facilities with neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) if they cannot provide the necessary care. Obstetricians and other practitioners must inform patients of the policies of any hospital where they have admitting privileges during the first prenatal visit. This transparency aims to ensure parents are fully informed about the medical care available for extremely premature babies, especially since different hospitals have varying capacities and approaches to resuscitation and intensive care for these vulnerable infants. To enforce these requirements, hospitals that accept Medicare payments must comply, and hospitals and obstetric providers that fail to meet these disclosure mandates will be prohibited from receiving federal Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding.