Victory Memorial to receive $3.39 million payment under Medicare share dispute settlement

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Jan. 4 - Victory Memorial Hospital will receive $3.39 million under a $667 million global settlement with the Secretary of Health and Human Services that resolves a dispute involving Medicare disproportionate share payments, according to a Thursday filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The settlement is subject to court approval.

According to the motion, Victory Memorial is a plaintiff in one of 300 civil actions brought by more than 650 hospitals against HHS.

In the civil actions, the plaintiffs claimed that the calculations of their Medicare disproportionate share hospital (DSH) adjustments were wrong and needed to be revised to include additional payments for specified fiscal years.

Victory Memorial said the DSH payment is a payment add-on to the standardized payments that each hospital receives under the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system, and it is designed to compensate hospitals for the higher operating costs they incur in treating a large share of low-income patients.

The civil case dispute centered on whether the Medicare program was required to recalculate the DSH adjustments for some fiscal years to include Medicaid eligible but unpaid days in the DSH adjustment calculation.

Under the global settlement, each plaintiff will receive a share of the $667 million total settlement amount. Specifically, Victory Memorial will receive a $3.39 million settlement payment. After payment of $847,524 in contingency/success fees, Victory Memorial will receive $2.54 million.

Also under the settlement, all of the plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss the civil lawsuit.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based hospital filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 15, 2006. Victory Memorial's Chapter 11 case number is 06-44387.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.