In a win for rural hospitals, Supreme Court rules that HHS cuts to some hospital Medicare payments were illegal - Entrepreneur Generations

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Department of Health and Human Services improperly changed the Medicare reimbursement formula for disproportionate share hospitals, which receive larger payments, in an effort to save billions of dollars. That's good news for rural hospitals, which are overall more dependent on DSH payments.

"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,'" Susannah Luthi reports for Modern Healthcare.

Gorsuch wrote that, because Medicare is such a large program, even small changes can make a big difference in millions of people's lives and need to be considered carefully. "Because affected members of the public received no advance warning and no chance to comment first, and because the government has not identified a lawful excuse for neglecting its statutory notice-and-comment obligations, we agree with the court of appeals that the new policy cannot stand," he wrote. 

"Disproportionate share hospital cuts have been delayed several times since first scheduled in 2014, but had been set to take effect in 2020 — beginning with a reduction of $4 billion and increasing to $8 billion by 2025," Dana Elfin reports for Healthcare Dive.

from The Rural Blog http://bit.ly/2WaHruc In a win for rural hospitals, Supreme Court rules that HHS cuts to some hospital Medicare payments were illegal - Entrepreneur Generations

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