WSHA has been in contact with Health Care Authority (HCA) staff regarding the status of payments following the audit of Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments. HCA informed WSHA that additional payments have already gone out on many of the underpaid hospitals and HCA is in process of sending underpayment and partial underpayment letters to the remaining underpaid hospitals. HCA indicated the process has gone smoothly but mentioned one complication has been identifying and contacting the appropriate person for some hospitals that have changed ownership over last few years. If you have questions regarding the status of your hospital, please contact Mike Brown, HCA’s Office of Legal Affairs at (360) 725-1481 or michael.brown@hca.wa.gov .
As HCA moves towards completing the underpayments, HCA staff will begin scheduling dispute conferences with the hospitals that were overpaid according to the audit that wish to have a dispute conference. Once HCA completes that process, they will begin issuing the final findings for the overpayments.
The disputes arise from a process where HCA contracted with Myers and Stauffer to perform an audit of EHR incentive payments to all hospitals that received the incentive payments. The audit was the result of a determination of the federal Office of Inspector General that Washington State and other states made errors in the calculation of incentive payments. According to the Myers and Stauffer audit results, some hospitals were overpaid, other hospitals were underpaid and are owed additional money. (Andrew Busz, andrewb@wsha.org )
