Hospitals frustrated by court ruling leaving 340B HHS payout

Photo: Constantine Johnny/Getty Images

On Tuesday, a federal court ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services could offer an appropriate remedy for underpayment to hospitals in the 340B program, to the dismay of the American Hospital Association and America’s Essential Hospitals.

“For more than five years, the Department of Health and Human Services has illegally withheld vital 340B hospital funding that helps them provide a range of important benefits to their patients and communities,” said Melinda Hutton, General Counsel and Secretary of the AHA. “We are disappointed that the district court has decided to extend this delay by remanding this case back to the department to determine an appropriate remedy.”

Dr. Bruce Siegel, President and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, said, “We are disappointed that the District Court has given the Department of Health and Human Services a free hand on how to fix $340 billion in illegal pay cuts for hospitals. These drastic cuts undermined the main hospitals. and came at the most inopportune time as suppliers grapple with the severe financial pressures of COVID-19.”

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT

Five years of hospital funding for 340 billion people has been lost because of these cuts, the groups said.

The AHA said that HHS recently indicated that it expects to offer a remedy by April and cited the District Court’s opinion that it “expects HHS to take prompt action to recover its underpayment.” Hospitals demand repayment of the debt with interest.

“Essential hospitals cannot tolerate additional repayment delays and we are ready to work with HHS to quickly resolve this,” Siegel said.

BIG TREND

The cuts represent an annual loss to hospitals of $1.6 billion.

They originated under the Trump administration in the 2018 Outpatient Estimated Payment System Final Rule, which cut drug reimbursements first by 28.5% and then by 22.5%.

AGA sued. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June 2022 in favor of the hospitals’ 340B drug reimbursement claims, but left questions about how the hospitals would be rebuilt from years without receiving billions from HHS.

In September 2022, a federal court ruled that HHS must immediately end its 30 percent reduction in hospital drug reimbursement under the 340B program. A ruling by Judge Rudolph Contreras in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected HHS’s plan to wait until January 1, 2023 to restore full-rate outpatient drug coverage for 340 billion hospitals.

But on Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided to allow HHS to offer an appropriate remedy for past underpayments to hospitals.

IN RECORDING

“Following the American Hospital Association’s unanimous victory in the U.S. Supreme Court last summer, the District of Columbia court ordered HHS to suspend its illegal 340B cuts for the remainder of 2022. will postpone any proposal for remedies for 2018-2021 Cypriot dollars until the 2024 Cypriot calendar month payment rule is in place, and in subsequent legal documents the agency has stated that it intends to announce definitive remedies before the completion of the OPPS rulemaking cycle 2024 next fall.” Hutton said.

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Write to the author: [email protected]

Content Source

Dallas Press News – Latest News:
Dallas Local News || Fort Worth Local News | Texas State News || Crime and Safety News || National news || Business News || Health News

texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

Related Articles

Back to top button