Medicare-dependent hospitals

Federal Health Policy Update for March 7

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for March 1-7.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress On Wednesday, March 16 the House passed, by a vote of 339-85, the first package of spending bills to fund some federal agencies through the remainder of the 2024 federal fiscal year.  The House bills include several health care provisions extending programs that were set to expire on Friday, March 8.  The bills would extend the following provisions and programs through December 31, 2024: The continued delay of cuts to Medicaid disproportionate [...]

Number of Medicare-Dependent Hospitals Declines

The number of Medicare-dependent hospitals in the U.S. fell 28 percent between 2011 and 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Medicare-dependent hospitals receive additional payments from Medicare if at least 60 percent of their discharges or inpatient days are associated with Medicare patients, if they have 100 or fewer beds, and if their historic costs in one of three base years are greater than what they would have been paid through Medicare’s inpatient prospective payment system.  The Medicare-dependent program was created in 1989 to protect vulnerable small, mostly rural hospitals, and in any given year not all eligible hospitals [...]

2020-03-03T06:00:53-05:00March 3, 2020|Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|
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