More data is needed about the supplemental Medicaid payments states make to hospitals and how those payments are financed, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
According to the GAO, states are increasingly funding non-disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) supplemental Medicaid payments to hospitals with funds from local governments and providers that are then matched by the federal government. In some states those supplemental payments, with the help of federal Medicaid matching funds, result in hospitals receiving reimbursement from Medicaid that exceeds the cost of the care they provide to their Medicaid patients.
Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals receive a number of such supplemental Medicaid payments.
In response to this concern, the GAO has urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to collect more and better data about how states finance their Medicaid programs and to do more to ensure that accuracy of that data. For its part, CMS maintains that its current efforts are adequate.
Learn more about this issue from the GAO report Improving Transparency and Accountability of Supplemental Payments and State Financing Methods, which can be found here.