On April 14, 2014, the American Hospital Association, New Jersey Hospital Association, and other hospital associations and systems (“Plaintiffs”) filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case 1:14-cv-00609, against Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) challenging three “unlawful” Medicare policies.[1] One of these policies is known as the two-midnight rule and involves Medicare Part A reimbursement.[2] This involves reimbursement for “inpatient” hospital services.
Neither HHS nor its administrative agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), has ever formally defined “inpatient.” CMS has recognized that the decision to admit a patient is a “complex judgment” call involving various factors including medical history, current medical needs, severity of signs and symptoms, types of facilities available, hospital by-laws and admissions policies, the medical predictability of something adverse happening to the patient, and the relative appropriateness of the treatment. Medicare Benefit Policy Manual Ch. 1 §10. Indeed, hospitals and physicians have been instructed by CMS that “generally, a patient is considered an inpatient if formally admitted as [such] with the expectation that he or she will remain at least overnight, and occupy a bed even though it later develops that the patient can be discharged or transferred to another hospital and not actually use a bed overnight.” Id. According to CMS, a physician should “use a 24-hour period as a benchmark; i.e., [physicians] should order admission for patients who are expected to need hospital care for 24 hours or more.” Id.
Despite its own guidance, CMS published a final rule in August 2013 that a Medicare beneficiary is not an “inpatient” unless the admitting physician expects the patient to require care in the hospital spanning two midnights (admitted on Day 1 and discharged on Day 3). Thus, CMS will not pay for an inpatient stay that spans less than two midnights (regardless of level of care, i.e., intensive care unit). Instead, that patient stay will be converted to an outpatient stay and one reimbursed under Medicare Part B.
The Plaintiffs allege this CMS rule is “arbitrary and capricious” and undoes decades of Medicare Policy. The Plaintiffs find it “unwise” to supplant physician judgment with a government rule. It “defies common sense” for “inpatient” to mean “a person who stays in the hospital until Day 3.”
This, allege the Plaintiffs, is contrary to the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”). The policy deprives hospitals of reimbursement to which they are entitled and forces them to spend an exorbitant amount of money and time and change their medical records systems, admissions policies and procedures and documentation protocols to comply with the rule. It further redirects resources that would otherwise be invested in patient care. Thus, request the Plaintiffs, the policy must be set aside.
As of May 14, 2014 an Answer by the Government has not been filed.
[1] A second federal lawsuit was also filed contending that the 0.2 percent Medicare payment based on CMS’ expectation of more patients being admitted for a two-midnight stay is unlawful.
[2] The other two policies being challenged are (1) requiring rebilling of denied claims within one year of service when many claims are at least a year old when audited and (2) expecting that physicians certify at admission that a Medicare patient is expected to need treatment for a period spanning two midnights.
