A group of 62 Massachusetts hospitals have won a lawsuit against HHS in which they claimed that a change in Medicare's wage-index calculations cost them more than $200 million. A federal judge has ordered HHS to recalculate the state's index, and pay the hospitals the disputed sum for the year in question, fiscal 2005. HHS had based its payments on a wage floor which was 20 percent lower than it had been the previous year, due to some changes in the state's hospital make-up which shifted its wage formula. Congress actually had intended the index to be based on actual wage costs in the state, the judge ruled.
To find out more about the case:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece
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