NOTICES

DEPARTMENT OF
HUMAN SERVICES

Supplemental Payments to Qualifying Hospitals

[50 Pa.B. 2143]
[Saturday, April 18, 2020]

 The Department of Human Services (Department) is announcing its intent to allocate funds for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019-2020 supplemental payments to qualifying acute care general hospitals that operate nursing school programs to promote their continued participation in the Medical Assistance (MA) Program. This payment promotes access to inpatient services for MA eligible persons by supporting the education and operations of the nursing school program, which will help to ensure the availability of health care professionals to treat the MA population.

Qualifying Criteria

 A hospital is eligible for these supplemental payments if the hospital meets all the following criteria. Unless otherwise stated, the source of the information is the FY 2016-2017 MA-336 Hospital Cost Report, as available to the Department as of October 29, 2019.

 a) The hospital is enrolled in the Pennsylvania (PA) MA Program as an acute care general hospital, licensed by the Department of Health;

 b) The hospital provided at least 130,000 combined days of fee-for-service and managed care inpatient acute care days;

 c) The hospital provided greater than 31,000 of the days in subsection b) to PA MA beneficiaries; and,

 d) The hospital's ratio of PA MA acute care nursing school medical education costs to the Statewide PA MA acute care nursing school medical education costs for all hospitals in PA exceeds 25%.

 Payments will be divided proportionately among qualified hospitals based on each hospital's fee-for-service PA MA inpatient acute care days to total fee-for-service PA MA inpatient acute care days for all qualifying hospitals.

Fiscal Impact

 For FY 2019-2020, the Department will allocate an annualized amount of $18.000 million in total funds for these supplemental payments, upon approval by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Public Comment

 Interested persons are invited to submit written comments regarding this notice to the Department of Human Services, Office of Medical Assistance Programs, c/o Regulations Coordinator, Room 515, Health and Welfare Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120. The Department will review and consider comments received within 30 days in determining the final payment methodology for these payments.

 Persons with a disability who require an auxiliary aid or service may submit comments using the Pennsylvania AT&T Relay Service at (800) 654-5984 (TDD users) or (800) 654-5988 (voice users).

TERESA D. MILLER, 
Secretary

 Fiscal Note: 14-NOT-1389. (1) General Fund; (2) Implementing Year 2019-20 is $4,923,000; (3) 1st Succeeding Year 2020-21 through 5th Succeeding Year 2024-25 are $0; (4) 2018-19 Program—$342,544,000; 2017-18 Program—$477,690,000; 2016-17 Program—$450,970,000; (7) MA—Fee-for-Service; (8) recommends adoption. Supplemental funds are to be included in the budget to cover this increase.

[Pa.B. Doc. No. 20-549. Filed for public inspection April 17, 2020, 9:00 a.m.]

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