Hospitals may gain some simplified rules regarding the counting of Medicaid
days beginning in federal fiscal year 2010. As we noted in the May 14, 2009
edition of Payment Matters, CMS's FY 2010 Inpatient Prospective Payment
System (IPPS) Proposed Rule offers some changes to the way that patient
days are counted in the Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) adjustment.
See "CMS Publishes Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) FY
2010 Proposed Rule," Payment Matters, May 14, 2009.
Specifically, the proposed rule includes bright line tests for the counting of
observation beds for DSH and indirect medical education (IME) purposes, and
for the counting of labor and delivery room days for DSH purposes. The
proposed rule would also give hospitals several options with respect to
reporting the number of patient days attributable to Medicaid eligible patients
for DSH purposes. If adopted, these new tests would apply to cost reporting
periods beginning on or after October 1, 2009. Leslie Demaree Goldsmith and Mark Stanley of Ober|Kaler look at some of the details.
Please see full publication below for more information.