The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to hear from you. At least that’s the reported response of CMS to complaints that it published a rule May 29 that was put on hold (until May 2008) by the supplemental funding legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bush on May 25. According to various reports, CMS wanted to publish the rule to “solicit comments from the public on issues related to the definition of the Unit of Government.” The definition is key to future implementation of the rule.
The rule would have curtailed states’ financing of Medicaid through the use of certified public expenditures, and removed federal funding of graduate medical education as Medicaid expenditures, both vigorously opposed by the hospital industry.
According to CMS, the final rule would clarify, among other things, that entities involved in the financing of the nonfederal share of Medicaid payments must be a unit of government, and would limit Medicaid reimbursement for healthcare providers that are operated by units of government to an amount that does not exceed the healthcare provider’s cost of providing services to Medicaid individuals. Download the rule.
