SCOTUS Hears Arguments Over Medicare DSH Payments

The Supreme Court case over whether CMS can exclude patients who have exhausted their Medicare Part A benefits from hospitals’ disproportionate share payments devolved during Monday’s (Nov. 29) oral arguments into a debate over the difference between beneficiaries who are entitled to Medicare benefits versus those who are eligible for them. In Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation, hospitals say HHS turned Medicare DSH payments into a disincentive when it changed a 20-year-old policy in 2005 to no longer pay...