The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette Mail reports that some rural hospitals in that state might go bankrupt if the Feds try to force them to pay millions of dollars in possible Medicaid overpayments.
The paper reported that Boone Memorial Hospital, Minnie Hamilton Health System, Roane General Hospital, Grafton City Hospital, Jackson General Hospital, Pocahontas Memorial Hospital and Sistersville General Hospital–might be compelled to repay Medicaid payments from the Disproportionate Share Hospital program (DSH). The DSH program is being phased out under the Affordable Care Act.
The problem is that all these hospitals have also runat least one rural health clinic. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is apparently taking back clinic-related DSH payments made to the hospitals from 2011 to 2015. The repayments would total $8 million, with repayments from individual hospitals ranging from $28,000 to $1.8 million.
West Virginia is a poor state and so more than three-quarters of the patients are enrolled in Medicaid or lack insurance.
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