Rural Hospitals Eye Reimbursement Boost Post-Chevron

Healthcare attorney Susan Banks was mentioned in a Modern Healthcare article about the potential for rural hospitals to gain more financial security in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Chevron ruling. The article discusses how "tweener" hospitals, which are too large to be considered critical access hospitals but too small to be rural referral centers, could benefit from revised criteria for the critical access hospital program. If lawsuits successfully lead to changes in the program's requirements, these hospitals could be granted more favorable Medicare reimbursement rates. However, Ms. Banks noted that while changes to the critical access hospital program requirements could help hospitals like Olympic Medical Center, a 67-bed facility in Washington, they could still be years away. She said a lawsuit could trigger a potential three-year rulemaking process.

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