Skilled care provider not entitled to notification before Medicaid cuts, judge says

An Illinois nursing home has lost a court battle over whether it had to be notified of rate cuts.

Bloomington-based Heritage Operations Group had taken the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to court, after the state retroactively dinged some of the operator’s facilities with hundreds of thousands in cuts to its Medicaid payments.

The provider argued that it should be entitled to advance notice and a chance to comment before those reductions. But Judge John Blakey, of the U.S. District Court for the North District of Illinois, disagreed, Bloomberg Law reports. The state and federal government did not violate its Medicaid laws or due process rights, he wrote.

Blakey’s decision is notable because it clarifies that the Medicaid Act does not require states to give a notice-and-comment period before adopting reimbursement rate changes at individual facilities. The judge agreed with HFS that such a requirement would be “staggeringly impractical.”