WSW Secures Medicare Dependent Hospital Status and Significant Additional Funding for Nanticoke Memorial Hospital and Deborah Heart and Lung Center
In Brief
- Engineered a successful bipartisan legislative campaign that resulted in the passage of the “Fairness for Our Hospitals Act,” changing federal law to correct a significant payment inequity for the two hospitals.
- Secured millions of dollars in increased annual Medicare reimbursements by creating a permanent legislative solution after initial regulatory and administrative appeals were exhausted.
- Demonstrated relentless and strategic advocacy by pursuing a multi-venue strategy that ultimately overturned a prohibitive regulatory barrier when the executive branch review process failed to produce the necessary remedy.
WSW represents two hospitals in two different states that would have qualified for enhanced reimbursement under the Medicare Dependent Hospital (MDH) program but for the fact that they are located in states considered “all-urban” by CMS. WSW assisted these hospitals with applying to CMS directly for the benefit and, when they were denied, facilitated them taking their case to the Provider Reimbursement Review Board, where they won a favorable decision, which was ultimately overturned by the CMS Administrator. As a result, we developed, implemented and managed a bipartisan, bicameral legislative campaign that required us to educate a significant number of Members of Congress, along with staff on committees of jurisdiction and leadership offices that ultimately resulted in the “Fairness for Our Hospitals Act” being passed into law. This resulted in a change in the existing law that has increased these hospitals’ reimbursements by millions of dollars annually.