Supreme Court to Review Medicare Payments to Hospitals

The Supreme Court decided on June 10 to hear an appeal that seeks to clarify a 2022 ruling that set out how Medicare calculates payments for hospitals that serve the poor. An unsigned order granted the petition for certiorari, or review, in Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra. No justices dissented and the court didn’t explain its decision. At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant the petition for it to advance to the oral argument stage. Lead petitioner Advocate Christ Medical Center is in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is the respondent. In the 2022 decision in Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation, the court voted 5-4 to reject a challenge from a hospital system that serves low-income people and upheld the government reimbursement formula....