Legislators have pulled the plug on a plan to cut hospital reimbursements for services away from the main hospital campus.

The Indiana Hospital Association says it's on board with a session-long push to end surprise billing and create transparency in health costs. But doctors, nurses and administrators flooded the statehouse to warn against a proposal added by a Senate committee last week to pay hospitals less for services at outpatient surgery centers, M-R-I facilities or other offsite locations.

IHA president Brian Tabor says hospitals have created those off-campus centers to give patients easier access to health care. Hendricks Regional Hospital chief medical officer Michelle Fenoughty says it's a matter of understanding consumer behavior: patients are more likely to get the preventive care they need if it's convenient. She argues the rise of outpatient centers has helped drive improvements in cancer survival rates, because more people are getting recommended mammograms and colonoscopies.

Tabor says some older hospitals have opened off-campus centers because there's no room for them to expand at their original locations.

Hospitals warn the proposal would force some hospitals to close and put pressure on the rest. And they argue it would actually drive costs up instead of down by discouraging preventive care.

On a voice vote, senators stripped the off-campus amendment from the bill, five days after adding it. Some senators acknowledge they voted for the proposal before they had time to fully understand it.