Medicare Hospital Payments for Claims Involving the Acute- and Post-Acute-Care Transfer Policies

Medicare's acute- and post-acute-care transfer policies designate some discharges as transfers when beneficiaries receive care from certain post-acute-care facilities. The diagnosis-related group (DRG) payment provides payment in full to hospitals for all inpatient services associated with a particular diagnosis. Because of its transfer payment policies, Medicare pays hospitals a per diem rate for early discharges when beneficiaries are transferred to another prospective payment system hospital or to post-acute-care settings, including skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, home health agencies, long-term-care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and hospice. This is based on the presumption that hospitals should not receive full payments for beneficiaries discharged early and then admitted for additional care in other clinical settings. Previous Office of Inspector General reviews identified Medicare overpayments to hospitals that did not comply with Medicare's post-acute-care transfer policy.

We will review Medicare hospital discharges that were paid a full DRG payment when the patient was transferred to a facility covered by the acute and post-acute transfer policies where Medicaid paid for the service. Under the acute- and post-acute transfer policies, these hospital inpatient stays should have been paid a reduced amount. Additionally, we will assess the transfer policies to determine if they are adequately preventing cost shifting across healthcare settings.

Announced or Revised	Agency	Title	Component	Report Number(s)	Expected Issue Date (FY)
Revised	Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services	Medicare Hospital Payments for Claims Involving the Acute- and Post-Acute-Care Transfer Policies	Office of Audit Services	W-00-20-35832	2024