The National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has submitted formal comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in response to the latter’s proposed hospital payment plan for FY 2020.

Responding to the proposed inpatient prospective payment system published by CMS in April, NASH primarily addressed a CMS proposal to change how it calculates Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH) uncompensated care payments and proposed changes in the Medicare area wage index system.

Yesterday, the NASH blog presented the alliance’s written comments about proposed changes in Medicare DSH uncompensated care payments.  Today, it presents a detailed alternative proposal to CMS’s April 2019 recommendation for calculating those payments.  On Thursday the blog presents NASH’s response to proposed changes in the Medicare area wage index system.  The complete NASH response to the proposed CMS regulation can be found here.

Calculation of Medicare DSH Uncompensated Care Payments for FY 2020

Factor 3 represents a hospital’s share (as estimated by the Secretary) of the total uncompensated care provided by all hospitals eligible to receive DSH payments.  CMS has, in recent years, calculated UCC DSH payments using an average of three factor 3 calculations subject to a budget neutrality adjustment that modifies the average factor 3 for each hospital to spend the appropriate amount of money (i.e., factor 1 times factor 2) for the fiscal year.

For the reasons stated in the accompanying comment letter, NASH recommends that for FY 2020, CMS implement year one of a three-year transition to using a three-year average of audited post-transmittal 11 data.  The schedule for this transition would be as follows:

  • Year one (FY 2020) would consist of a blend of 2/3 of a hospital’s 2019 UCC DSH payment with 1/3 of the hospital’s UCC DSH payment based on unaudited 2017 S-10 data. During FY 2020, CMS could engage in audits of the 2017 data.
  • Year two (FY 2021) would consist of a blend of 1/3 of a hospital’s 2019 UCC DSH payment with 2/3 of the hospital’s UCC DSH payment based on the average factor 3 derived from the hospital’s audited 2017 data and unaudited 2018 data. During FY 2021, CMS could engage in audits of the 2018 data.
  • Year three (FY 2022) would consist of an equally weighted blend of the hospital’s audited 2017 and 2018 data and unaudited 2019 data.

Each year thereafter, CMS could continue to engage in audits while rolling forward the three-year average, adding a new year of data to the calculation and dropping the oldest year of data.  The result balances timeliness and accuracy while also maintaining year-over-year stability.

Specifically, for FY 2020, a hospital’s final factor 3 would be calculated by:

  • Calculating for each hospital a preliminary 2017 factor 3 by dividing the hospital’s reported line 30 uncompensated care (subject to any adjustments or trims) by the total reported line 30 uncompensated care (subject to any adjustments or trims) reported by all hospitals expected to receive DSH in FY 2020 on their 2017 cost reports.
  • Calculating for each hospital a blended FY 2020 factor 3 by summing the hospital’s preliminary 2017 factor 3 plus its FY 2019 final factor 3 plus its FY 2019 final factor 3 and dividing by 3 if the hospital received a payment in 2019 and 1 if the hospital received no payment in 2019.
  • Deriving a standardization factor by calculating the average factor 3 for all hospitals projected to receive DSH and dividing the result by 1.0.
  • Calculating each hospital’s final FY 2020 factor 3 by multiplying its blended FY 2020 factor 3 by the standardization factor.

Puerto Rico hospitals, Indian Health Service and Tribal hospitals would continue receive a factor 3 based on low-income insured days from FY 2013.

For 2021, each hospital’s factor three would be based on the three-year average of its 2019 final factor 3, its 2017 factor 3 and its 2018 factor 3.

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Tomorrow, see NASH’s comments on CMS’s proposal for changes in the Medicare geographic wage classification system.

See NASH’s entire response to the proposed Medicare regulation here.