Federal Court Bars Pennsylvania Medicaid DSH Payments During Ongoing Litigation - October 19, 2009

A federal court granted West Virginia University Hospitals Inc. (WVUH) a preliminary injunction barring Pennsylvania from disbursing DSH trauma payments while WVUH challenges a state accreditation requirement for hospitals to receive these payments (click here to read the decision). Pennsylvania began making DSH payments to WVUH after a 2007 court ruling that it was improperly treating out-of-state hospitals differently than similarly-situated in-state hospitals. Pennsylvania then amended its state plan to provide DSH trauma payments only to hospitals accredited by the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation, which has no authority to accredit out-of-state hospitals. In granting the recent preliminary injunction, the court concluded that WVUH demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success in its challenge and that it was otherwise likely to suffer irreparable harm that outweighed the potential harm to Pennsylvania hospitals.