Today, FAH joined the American Hospital Association and four other national hospital trade associations in filing an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, asking to reverse the ruling of a lower court in the case, Advocate Christ Medical Center v. HHS. That case concerns HHS’s calculation of the DSH formula concerning the inclusion of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI)-entitled Medicare population.

The Lower Court of Appeals ruled in favor of HHS’s restrictive reading of the statute, which decreased DSH hospital payments. The amicus brief asserts that the HHS’s approach “continues the agency’s long history of undermining the DSH program” and points out that “Although Congress established DSH payments to address the critical needs of hospitals serving poor communities, HHS has repeatedly interpreted the statute in the most restrictive manner possible. Consistency has been no obstacle…”

The brief describes how CMS’s error in interpreting the law — that a patient is entitled to SSI benefits only if the patient received cash SSI payments during a hospital stay – is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Empire Health Foundation regarding the calculation of the DSH formula for Medicare benefits, and “has far-reaching implications for hospitals, patients, and the American healthcare system,” with harms “falling hardest on America’s rural and safety-net hospitals…. and the communities they serve.” The brief urges the Court to “apply the logic of Empire Health to a different part of the same statutory formula, and reverse.”

Read the amicus brief here.