UCHealth sued the company overseeing Medicaid in Colorado on Friday, alleging it mislabeled two of the well being community’s hospitals, costing it the justifiable share of a payment to offset uncompensated care.
The lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court docket, alleges the Colorado Division of Well being Care Coverage and Financing mislabeled two UCHealth services as publicly owned, somewhat than non-public nonprofit hospitals.
UCHealth stated the alleged misclassification had lowered the quantity that Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs and Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins obtained from the state’s well being care affordability and sustainability payment.
Neither the lawsuit nor a UCHealth spokesman stated how a lot cash the well being system believes it’s owed.
The state collects the payment from most hospitals and makes use of it to attract down matching federal funds. It then distributes the collected cash and the matching funds primarily based on a method, to offset the price of uncompensated care and high quality enchancment efforts.
It wasn’t clear why the state labeled the 2 hospitals as publicly owned or when that occurred. The Division of Well being Care Coverage and Financing on Friday stated its officers are reviewing the lawsuit and couldn’t but remark.
Whereas the 2 hospitals lease their buildings from native governments, they don’t obtain funding from them, and the non-public entity UCHealth manages them, stated Dan Weaver, a spokesman for the well being system. The division declined to alter the hospitals’ classifications after UCHealth identified in December that they didn’t line up with federal guidelines about what counts as a public hospital, he stated.
If UCHealth wins and will increase the share going to 2 of its hospitals, another hospitals’ shares would lower. A broader ruling that made the division change the way it classifies hospitals might create much more winners and losers.
“Because the state’s largest supplier of Medicaid providers, UCHealth and our hospitals are devoted to serving low-income residents of our state and people who might stay in a rural space. HCPF’s misclassification of our hospitals places Medicaid sufferers in danger by doubtlessly denying funds wanted for his or her care,” he stated in a press release.
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