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"For Immediate Release" - HHS Makes ARRA $268 Million Available to Support Hospitals
Building on President Barack Obama's efforts to ensure access to health care for millions of uninsured Americans, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier today, March 20, 2009, announced that states can access an additional $268 million authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to help pay hospitals to treat their most vulnerable patients. Eligible hospitals are those that serve a disproportionate share of low-income or uninsured individuals and are known as Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH). States receive an annual allotment to make payments to DSH hospitals to account for higher costs associated with treating uninsured and low-income patients. This annual allotment is calculated by law and includes requirements to ensure that the DSH payments to hospitals are not higher than the actual costs incurred by the hospital to provide the uncompensated care. The ARRA increases the amount of allotments available to states from approximately $11.06 billion to $11.33 billion for 2009. CMS will notify states about the availability of the increased portion of allotments for hospitals. Not all states spend their full DSH allotments; so, before this new funding can be accessed, states must demonstrate they have used all of their existing fiscal year 2009 DSH allotments. States must request the additional funds from CMS as part of their quarterly Medicaid budget request and the funds will be distributed as separate ARRA DSH grants. The completed list of DSH allotment thru ARRA is available at http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/cms/dshstates.html.
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