Torrance Memorial Medical Center was among more than a dozen plaintiff hospitals in a lawsuit filed Monday seeking a court order to have Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar recalculate the hospital’s allegedly inadequate Medicare funding.
In an 18-page complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Torrance Memorial alleges the department gave the hospital insufficient Medicare payments because of a miscalculation of the number of days patients were treated for periods prior to Oct. 1, 2013, including the fiscal years 2006 through 2009.
A message seeking comment from an HHS representative was not immediately answered.
According to the document, Torrance Memorial qualified for a special type of Medicare payment available to hospitals that treat a “disproportionate share” of low income patients as compared to other hospitals.
The hospitals brought the action because Azar, acting through contractors, allegedly calculated plaintiffs’ entitlements in an “arbitrarily and capriciously inconsistent” manner.
Torrance Memorial and other plaintiffs are seeking that the department pay the adjusted Medicare payments, plus interest, that allegedly should have been distributed to the facilities, the document states.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recently filed a similar complaint against HHS.