Supreme Court Rules That Obama-Era Rule On Medicare Payments For Hospitals Should Be Removed
The justices wrote that HHS did not provide enough warning to the public about the cuts. The case was highly technical, and hinged on dueling interpretations of agency activity on what constitutes a "substantive legal standard" in a payment policy change to Medicare.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that HHS improperly changed its Medicare disproportionate-share hospital payments when it made billions of dollars in cuts. In a 7-1 decision, the justices said HHS needed a notice-and-comment period for the Medicare DSH calculation change. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the decision that HHS' position for not following the procedure was "ambiguous at best." (Luthi, 6/3)
The highly technical ruling and dispute聽involves billions of dollars in Medicare payments to hospitals. The court ruled for hospitals聽that had sued over聽the 2014 policy, which reduced their payments聽for serving low-income patients because of a change to the payment formula.鈥淚n 2014, the government revealed a new policy on its website that dramatically鈥攁nd retroactively鈥攔educed payments to hospitals serving low-income patients,鈥 Gorsuch wrote. (Thomsen and Sullivan, 6/3)
In other news from the Supreme Court 鈥
Minneapolis-based Allina Health prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that reverses a move by federal Medicare authorities to cut billions of dollars in payments supporting hospital care for low-income patients. Three Allina hospitals were among a group of nine that challenged the change, which decreased their federal payments by about $49鈥塵illion a year. But the ruling, issued Monday, affects all U.S. hospitals that serve high numbers of low-income patients. (Howatt, 6/3)
