The new Medicare DSH payment: what's baked into the pie--and how it's sliced

Medicare's new disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payment method combines a payment amounting to 25 percent of what a hospital would have traditionally received with an additional amount that is the product of three factors: An estimate of the aggregate amount of DSH payments that the Medicare program would have paid in FFY14 under the traditional payment method. An adjustment to that figure to account for an estimated percentage change in the national uninsured rate between FFY13 and FFY14. Each hospital's estimated percentage of the total uncompensated care costs incurred by all hospitals that are expected to qualify for DSH payments.