America's Essential Hospitals asks Congress to postpone Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payment cuts until they can reach a sustainable solution.

Communities rely on essential hospitals for trauma and other lifesaving care, physician training, emergency response, and other vital services. Essential hospitals, in turn, rely on policymakers for support to keep these services available to all. Learn more about this careful balance.

The rule contains provisions on the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, Medicare DSH, the Inpatient Quality Reporting program, and more.

It requires Medicare payments for beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicaid, and other third-party payments be included in uncompensated care calculations.

Of particular interest to essential hospitals, CMS revised the Worksheet S-10, which hospitals use to report uncompensated care data.

The deadline for hospitals to amend their Medicare cost report Worksheet S-10 for fiscal year 2014 is Sept. 30.

Aggregate data collected by the association will help inform advocacy on disproportionate share hospital payments and other funding support.

New group for members who want to take an active role in defending against Medicare disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payment cuts.

Proposed renewals must be for demonstrations that are working effectively and have no major or complex policy changes. Certain waivers that use the enhanced FMAP are ineligible.

The association will use the information gathered to advocate to policymakers the need to continue to support essential hospitals’ mission and service to their communities. This survey focuses on the first quarter of calendar year 2015. We will use aggregate information only.

This survey remains especially important in light of recent media coverage that has suggested the need for essential hospitals and the funding to support them may no longer be necessary. Responses due July 24.

In an April 28 letter, the association urged CMS to adopt a holistic view of how payment mechanisms impact essential hospitals, including sustainable base payment rates, Medicaid waivers to address uncompensated care, and DSRIP waivers.

America's Essential Hospitals is conducting this member survey to capture the impact of the ACA coverage expansion on essential hospitals.

The survey focuses on uncompensated care and utilization during the last two quarters of CYs 2013 and 2014. It aims to capture the impact of ACA coverage expansion on essential hospitals.

Agency reverts to position recommended by America's Essential Hospitals to define uninsured status at the service level for purposes of calculating DSH payments; sets Dec. 31 as start of new policy

The association extended the survey deadline to continue to gather information on members' uncompensated care post-ACA.

The association launched this survey Nov. 10 to capture the impact of the ACA coverage expansion on essential hospitals.

The survey aims to capture the impact of ACA coverage expansion and add to association advocacy efforts with timely information on members' uncompensated care.

The definition would be used for determining Medicaid DSH costs. Association urges policy that accurately captures the actual burden of uncompensated care, particularly before DSH cuts and recoupment based on DSH audits begin.

A recent study found that planned reductions in Medicaid DSH payments and ongoing inflation in health care costs will cause debilitating gaps in funding for essential hospitals. Expected system costs to states that do not expand Medicaid will be exacerbated by continued uncompensated care costs and no additional Medicaid funds to offset them.