CMS updates Medicare appeals settlement numbers

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced that it has settled appeals of outstanding Medicare inpatient status claims with more than 1,900 hospitals, representing approximately 300,000 claims, which modestly reduces the significant backlog of Medicare appeals in the system. The agency says that it has paid approximately $1.3 billion to hospitals through the settlement offer it made last August in an attempt to address the backlog of Medicare appeals – numbering over 800,000 as of July 1, 2014 – awaiting a hearing before an administrative law judge.