Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

CMS finally agrees: Immigration and emergency care don't mix

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has changed its tune on a July proposal that would have required hospitals to collect additional immigration information from undocumented aliens.

The good news: Hospitals won't have to grill patients who come through your emergency room doors. But will hospitals still get their share of the $1 billion reform-bill fund as promised?

In an Oct. 1 letter to the American Hospital Association, CMS Administrator Mark McClellan said that CMS had taken note of the "public health implications" raised by numerous hospitals in the comment period. Namely, hospitals worry that requiring proof of immigration status for Medicaid coverage would deter many patients from seeking emergency treatment.

Old plan: Say goodbye to the proposed data eligibility collection instrument CMS posted last summer. New plan: Instead, hospitals can keep reform-bill funding, but eligibility methods will be "indirect, non-burdensome" and will not require providers "to obtain direct evidence of a patient's immigration status," McClellan said. "Providers will not be asked - and should not ask - about a patient's citizenship status in order to receive payment," he adds.

McClellan says CMS will release a final policy as soon as a comment review is completed.