Manatt’s Helen Pfister, a partner with Manatt Health, spoke with HealthLeaders on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a case involving a Medicare reimbursement formula.
According to HealthLeaders, the Court ruled that HHS stepped out of line when it retooled a Medicare reimbursement formula for disproportionate share hospitals (DSH) in 2014 and did not set up a formal notice-and-comment process for the change.
Pfister told HealthLeaders that she doesn’t think anyone knows for the time being whether the government will automatically revise DSH payments for the affected fiscal years, pursue another round of notice-and-comment rulemaking, or take some other course of action in response to the Supreme Court ruling.
“Moving forward, HHS and CMS will continue to have discretion to determine whether to go through notice-and-comment with a given action,” Pfister added. “The difference now is that there's a stronger incentive for government officials to cover themselves."
Read the article here.