Manatt’s Anne O’Hagen Karl, a partner with Manatt Health, spoke with FierceHealthcare on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on a case involving disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) payments.
The Court ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services had failed to properly seek public comment before making the payment change. The policy had changed the way that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services calculates DSH payments.
Karl said that it is up to CMS to determine how to interpret the ruling—the organization could interpret it broadly, which would likely lead to far more notice-and-comment rulemaking, or it could interpret it more narrowly and continue to do its work as it does now.
She added that the ruling was “a pretty straight statutory interpretation opinion. We’ll see how CMS interprets it going forward.”