Indigent Care and Voluntary UPL

The Department of Health notified providers on November 7, 2011 that the final six months of payments from the Indigent Care Pool and Voluntary Hospital UPL distributions will be reduced by the 2% Across the Board (ATB) reduction for inpatient services approved by the legislature in April 2011. The 2% ATB reduction requires the Department to achieve an annual savings of 2% for the 2011 and 2012 state fiscal years, but since CMS approval was not received until October 2011, this reduction to your payments will be implemented at a rate of 4% over the remaining six months of this pool year in order to recoup the adjustment retroactive to the April 1, 2011 effective date.

The Department will not recoup any overpayments that have been made to your hospital at this time, but will instead handle this issue when the 2011 reconciled final DSH Caps are implemented. In addition, because the distributions differ in the April - September period from the October - March period, an adjustment will be made to your hospital's 2% ATB reduction to the correct amount when the 2011 pool is reconciled and closed out.