Texas hospitals fall short in an appellate ruling about disproportionate share hospital payment calculations

Texas hospitals fall short in an appellate ruling about disproportionate share hospital payment calculations

An appeals court dealt hospitals a defeat in a case about Medicare disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, reversing a lower court’s prior ruling on jurisdictional grounds last week. A Dec. 9 decision by a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit means certain Section 1115 waiver days can remain excluded from a hospital’s tally of Medicaid patients as an input in the Medicare DSH formula, pending further admin…