CMS gives LifePoint $31M in Medicare payment settlement

LifePoint Hospitals is the latest hospital to report underpayments from the industry-wide settlement with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. LifePoint received an additional $31.3 million in Medicare revenue and roughly $5.7 million in related costs for the first quarter of 2012, the Brentwood, Tenn.-based hospital operator announced Friday.

LifePoint is among the 2,200 hospitals to receive corrections from underpayments that stretch back to 1999, thanks to the Medicare Rural Floor settlement. It joins several hospital operators in Tennessee that saw higher-than-expected Medicare reimbursements from the Rural Floor settlement. Nashville's HCA Holdings got an additional $271 million in Medicare payments for the first three months of 2012, while Community Health Systems in Brentwood saw $102 million in revenue.

For the first quarter of this year, LifePoint's income from continuing operations totaled $56.1 million, up 22.3 percent from the first quarter of 2011.

The hospital operator also completed four acquisitions that totaled $200 million in revenue through the Duke LifePoint community hospital network. "Duke LifePoint has great potential, and the response it has received proves its scope extends beyond our initially targeted region," LifePoint Chairman and CEO William Carpenter told reporters in an earnings conference call last week.

LifePoint expects to collect the Royal Floor settlement in the second quarter, the company said in the conference call.

To learn more:
- here's the LifePoint announcement
- read the earnings call transcript