The federal authorities owes tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to dozens of safety-net hospitals for alleged delays in correcting Medicare disproportionate share hospital funds, hospitals alleged in a brand new lawsuit.
Practically 4 dozen hospitals in San Francisco, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Minnesota filed the go well with Tuesday in opposition to the Well being and Human Providers Division Secretary Xavier Becerra in a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom. Whereas regulators conceded in 2010 the DSH fee calculations had been incorrect, HHS has delayed the amended funds, the hospitals allege.
“The company’s unreasonable delay has price the plaintiff hospitals tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funds that ought to have been paid to them a few years in the past for the upper prices that they incurred to deal with low-income sufferers greater than a decade in the past,” the criticism alleges.
HHS didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
DSH payments are supposed to offset the prices incurred by hospitals that largely serve low-income sufferers. Following a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom’s 2008 ruling that affirmed a Massachusetts hospital’s problem of the DSH fee methodology, HHS was required to ship DSH fee appeals to the company’s contractors, who had been tasked with making the hospitals complete.
However the company’s contractors haven’t made these fee redetermination calculations nor paid any of the hospitals, the criticism alleges.
The hospitals’ lawsuit alleges HHS has unjustly used a associated go well with as justification for delaying the amended funds. Minneapolis-based Allina Well being Providers filed a lawsuit in 2010 in opposition to HHS, targeted on utilizing Medicare Benefit sufferers in DSH fee calculations and the associated rulemaking efforts. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of hospitals, ordering HHS to vacate the regulation and carry out a extra thorough notice-and-comment rulemaking course of.
Based on the criticism, the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers mentioned it has not accomplished the suitable public notification course of and thus has needed to delay the amended funds.
