The American Hospital Association has labeled CMS' $957 million cut to Medicare disproportionate share hospitals for 2024 as "simply unacceptable" and criticized the agency for a lack of transparency in how it calculates the uninsured rate and its effect on DSH payments.
"A cut of this magnitude threatens [hospitals] ability to continue providing essential services for their communities, especially during this tumultuous time of Medicaid redeterminations," AHA Executive Vice President Stacey Hughes wrote in an Aug. 9 letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. "Therefore, we urge the agency to allow the redetermination process to finish before enacting a DSH cut of this magnitude."
As of Aug. 3, at least 3.8 million Medicaid beneficiaries have been disenrolled, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and studies show that almost two-thirds of people had a period of uninsurance in the year following disenrollment. Furthermore, about 25 percent of adults with Medicaid as their only source of coverage would not know where to look for coverage and 15 percent said they would be uninsured, according to a May 23 survey.
In light of these findings and hospitals' ongoing financial challenges, the AHA has asked CMS to maintain the uninsured rate at the 2023 level (9.2 percent) in its 2024 DSH calculations to provide stability for hospitals.