AHA and three member hospitals today recommended to a federal district court four non-deadline remedies to reduce the backlog of Medicare billing appeals awaiting adjudication at the Administrative Law Judge level, while maintaining that the agency has failed to show that it cannot clear the backlog within five years as previously ordered. AHA and the hospitals said four broad categories of non-deadline remedies together would make a “non-trivial dent” in the backlog of appeals: Recovery Audit Contractor controls; settlements; relief from the negative impacts of the backlog; and agency maintenance of effort and periodic status reporting. “The D.C. Circuit remanded to this Court for the Court to decide what is possible to solve the backlog, not a freewheeling inquiry as to what steps HHS would prefer to take to solve the backlog,” they wrote. “Each remedy propose[d] is legal and not futile, and that is all the Court must find to order HHS to carry those steps out.” In April, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg expressed frustration with HHS’s lack of progress and asked AHA and the hospitals for additional input on how to solve the appeals backlog. The brief will be posted later today at https://www.aha.org/legal/litigation

Related News Articles

Headline
The AHA provided a statement of record to the Senate Special Committee on Aging for a hearing Oct. 8 on the pharmaceutical and medical device supply chains.…
Headline
The AHA Oct. 3 responded to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s recent analysis on the financial impacts of Medicare Advantage enrollment growth on…
Headline
The federal government shutdown will continue as the Senate Oct. 3 failed to adopt a government funding deal. The latest attempt to pass the House-passed…
Headline
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Sept. 30 issued a memo, through the Health Plan Management system, finalizing the Medicare Advantage…
Headline
The federal government shut down Oct. 1 following a failed Senate vote on the House-passed continuing resolution to fund the government by midnight Sept. 30.…
Headline
The AHA Sept. 29 asked the Trump administration to provide exemptions for health care personnel from the proclamation issued Sept. 19 announcing changes to the…