Ferguson Memorial Hospital Case Study

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Facts: Between 1972 and 1982 Guernsey Memorial Hospital issued bonds to fund capital improvements. Three years later the hospital refinanced its bonded debt by issuing new bonds, resulting in saving $12 million in debt service cost but also causing an advance refunding/ defeasance loss of $672,581. Consequently, the hospital established that it was entitled to $314,000 of the loss as Medicare reimbursement. The issue in this case was not the $314,000, but the timing; The Hospital claimed that it was entitled to full reimbursement in one year (the refinancing year) however, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services argued that the loss must be amortized over the life of the old bonds. The Secretary's argument was based on an informal Medicare reimbursement guideline, Medicare Provider Reimbursement Manual (PRM) §233 (Mar. 1993). The fiscal intermediary relied on PRM §233 and determined that the defeasance loss had to be amortized. The Provider Reimbursement Review …show more content…

§§ 413.20. By applying the above rule to the issue at question, application of GAAP is required only for reporting purposes and not for Medicare reimbursement determination. Hence, 42 C.F.R. § 413.20 requires providers to report their costs in accordance with GAAP, it does not require costs to be reimbursed in the year that they are reported. In other words, the regulation instructs the Secretary to establish methods for determining cost reimbursement. Therefore, cost reimbursement determination is established by the guidelines that are promulgated by the Secretary of HHS i.e. PRM §233. The Secretary’s guideline PRM §233 requiring that the costs are spread over a period of years is a reasonable implementation of the Secretary’s duty to avoid distortions in the reimbursement process. The Supreme Court of the U.S. decided that the defeasance losses should be

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