District Memorial Hospital Of Southwestern North Carolina, Incorporated v. Tommy G. Thompson

364 F.3d 513, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 7051
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedApril 12, 2004
Docket03-1401
StatusPublished

This text of 364 F.3d 513 (District Memorial Hospital Of Southwestern North Carolina, Incorporated v. Tommy G. Thompson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
District Memorial Hospital Of Southwestern North Carolina, Incorporated v. Tommy G. Thompson, 364 F.3d 513, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 7051 (4th Cir. 2004).

Opinion

364 F.3d 513

DISTRICT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INCORPORATED, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Tommy G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, in his official capacity, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 03-1401.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: January 20, 2004.

Decided: April 12, 2004.

ARGUED: Mark Simon Davies, Civil Division, Appellate Staff, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Susan McNear Fradenburg, Smith Moore, L.L.P., Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Robert J. Conrad, Jr., United States Attorney, Scott R. McIntosh, Attorney, Civil Division, Appellate Staff, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Maureen Demarest Murray, Smith Moore, L.L.P., Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Before NIEMEYER, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Reversed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge King and Judge Duncan joined.

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

The Secretary of Health and Human Services denied District Memorial Hospital of Southwestern North Carolina, Inc., a special reimbursement that is available under the Medicare program to hospitals providing inpatient acute care to a "significantly disproportionate number of low-income patients." This special reimbursement is known as the "disproportionate share adjustment." Because District Memorial Hospital used its beds to provide both acute care and nursing care, when determining whether the hospital qualified for the adjustment, the Secretary applied regulation 42 C.F.R. § 412.106 (1988) to exclude from the eligibility calculation these dual-use beds — known as "swing beds" — whenever they were used to provide nursing care. The district court, reviewing the Secretary's determination on cross-motions for summary judgment, found that the Secretary misconstrued and misapplied regulation § 412.106. The court concluded that the regulation is "clear" and "admits of only one meaning" — the meaning advanced by District Memorial Hospital to justify its claim for reimbursement of the disproportionate share adjustment. Accordingly, the court remanded the matter to the Secretary "for the prompt payment" to the hospital of $615,607 plus interest.

Because we conclude that regulation § 412.106 is ambiguous and that the Secretary's interpretation is a reasonable construction of the regulatory language, see Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 506, 114 S.Ct. 2381, 129 L.Ed.2d 405 (1994), we defer to the Secretary and reverse.

* The Medicare program finances health care for the elderly and the disabled. See 42 U.S.C. § 1395c. Until 1983, the program reimbursed hospitals for the "reasonable cost" of inpatient services rendered to Medicare patients. In 1983, Congress overhauled the program and began reimbursing the cost of inpatient acute care under a "prospective payment system." The prospective payment system reimburses hospitals at fixed rates that are based on the patient's diagnosis upon discharge. See Social Security Amendments of 1983, Pub.L. No. 98-21, § 601, 97 Stat. 65, 149-72 (1983). The fixed rates are established by determining what an efficient hospital would spend to treat a patient with that diagnosis. Under the 1983 overhaul, expenses incurred for skilled nursing care continue to be reimbursable under the old "reasonable cost" basis, which is generally more desirable for hospitals because reimbursement is not limited by a fixed-rate schedule.

When adopting the prospective payment system in 1983, Congress recognized that the fixed rates established under that system could undercompensate hospitals that treated a high proportion of low-income Medicare patients, because those patients were thought generally to be in poorer health and would require more services than would higher-income patients. See H.R.Rep. No. 98-25(I), at 141-42 (1983), reprinted in 1983 U.S.C.C.A.N. 219, 360-61. Accordingly, Congress instructed the Secretary to formulate an adjustment to the fixed rates to increase the reimbursement to those hospitals that served a significantly disproportionate number of low-income patients — the "disproportionate share adjustment." When the Secretary delayed publishing a formulation, Congress itself set forth the criteria in 1986 for this disproportionate share adjustment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1395ww(d)(5)(F). The Secretary thereafter published the regulation at issue in this case, construing and implementing the congressional enactment. See 42 C.F.R. § 412.106 (1988).

The 1988 regulation provided that, in determining a hospital's disproportionate share adjustment, the relevant factors were the hospital's number of available beds, its number of "patient days," and its location. 42 C.F.R. § 412.106(a) (1988). The hospital's number of patient days was defined to include "only those days attributable to areas of the hospital that [were] subject to the prospective payment system and exclude[d] all others." Id. § 412.106(a)(ii). Because eligibility for the disproportionate share adjustment was based on the number of patient days attributable to "areas of the hospital that [were] subject to the prospective payment system" — i.e., areas providing inpatient acute care — eligibility for the adjustment for hospitals providing both acute care and nursing care depended on how the Secretary interpreted the regulation to define the areas where acute care was being performed. The Secretary's interpretation was especially critical with respect to hospitals providing both acute care and skilled nursing care at the same beds.

Distinguishing between "areas of the hospital subject to the prospective payment system" and those subject to reasonable-cost reimbursement presented no problem so long as the hospital was divided into distinct wings, each of which provided only one form of care — either acute care or skilled nursing care. And before 1980, the provision of those two types of care was in fact generally divided. Skilled nursing services were generally rendered in facilities that were separate and distinct from hospitals providing acute care. Moreover, in areas where acute care and skilled nursing care were provided in the same facility, Medicare required that hospitals provide skilled nursing care in a "distinct part" of the hospital, such as a building, floor, wing, or corridor that was physically separate from the inpatient acute care unit. See Rural Hospitals: Provision of Long-Term Care Services (Swing-Bed Provision), 47 Fed.Reg. 31,518, 31,518 (July 20, 1982) ("A distinct part... must be an entire physically identifiable unit consisting of all the beds within that unit (such as a separate building, floor, wing, or corridor) ...").

In the 1970s, the Secretary recognized that this model of separate facilities for different types of care was difficult for small rural hospitals to achieve, given their limited physical resources.

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Related

Udall v. Tallman
380 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1965)
Pauley v. BethEnergy Mines, Inc.
501 U.S. 680 (Supreme Court, 1991)
Thomas Jefferson University v. Shalala
512 U.S. 504 (Supreme Court, 1994)
Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.
325 U.S. 410 (Supreme Court, 1945)

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