The Firm recently participated in bringing about a $666 million dollar settlement, one of the largest government settlements ever paid to healthcare providers. Beginning in 2002, hospitals which ultimately became 667 in number sued the Secretary of Health and Human Services for his use of an improper policy to calculate payments under the Medicare Act to hospitals serving disproportionate numbers of poor people. This Firm, which represented a total of 41 hospitals in the lawsuit, was aided in its efforts by Quality Reimbursement Services, a premier Medicare reimbursement consulting firm specializing in Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments.

Due to the number of plaintiffs in the litigation, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia took the unusual step of consolidating all the separate complaints, which exceeded 250 in number,into one matter, designated In Re Medicare Reimbursement.

One group of hospitals was selected to be the lead plaintiffs and this group obtained a favorable decision from the District Court in 2004. The government appealed and lost before the Court of Appeals in 2005.In April 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court denied the government’s request for further review. This forced the government to undertake settlement negotiations with the entire group of plaintiff hospitals. Those negotiations started in April 2006 and continued until March 2008 when the government signed a settlement agreement calling for a payout of over $666 million dollars to the plaintiff hospitals. Les Alderman and Erling Hansen of the Firm worked hard to achieve equitable DSH payouts for the Firm’s 41 hospital clients.