AHA, hospitals ask court to compel HHS to comply with mandatory deadlines

Continued and growing delays in review of Medicare claims appeals at the Administrative Law Judge level call for the court to promptly order the Secretary of Health and Human Services to abide by the mandatory deadlines in the Medicare statute, the AHA and three hospital members told a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals during oral arguments today in AHA v. Burwell. “Hospitals have waited long enough,” said Cate Stetson of Hogan Lovells, counsel to AHA and the hospitals. “Mandamus should issue now.” The judges raised concerns with the government’s argument that competing agency priorities made it impossible to currently meet the statutory deadlines, noting that Congress gave the agency wide discretionary authority to restructure the Recovery Audit Contractor program, a major contributor to the appeals backlog.