(a) Each disproportionate share hospital contracting to provide services under this article or contracting with a county organized health system, and which has or would have met the state criteria developed pursuant to the federal medicaid requirements regarding disproportionate hospitals for the three most recent years prior to submitting final plans for an eligible project in accordance with subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (b), may, in addition to the rate of payment provided for in the contract entered into under this article, receive supplemental reimbursement to the extent provided for in this section.
(b) (1) (A) A hospital qualifying pursuant to subdivision (a) shall submit documentation regarding debt service on revenue bonds used for financing the construction, renovation, or replacement of hospital facilities, including buildings and fixed equipment.
(B) Qualified hospitals may submit debt service instruments to the department and to the commission regarding debt issued for new capital projects.
(C) Eligible projects shall include those new capital projects funded by new debt for which final plans have been submitted to the Office of the State Architect and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development after September 1, 1988, and prior to June 30, 1994, except that projects submitted between September 1, 1988, and June 30, 1989, shall be eligible only if the submitting hospital had all of the following additional characteristics during the 1989 calendar year:
(i) No less than 400 general acute care licensed beds.
(ii) An average Medi-Cal patient census of not less than 30 percent of the total patient days.
(iii) No less than 50,000 emergency department visits.
(iv) An existing basic emergency department, obstetrical services, and a neonatal intensive care unit.
(D) The department shall confirm in writing hospital and project eligibility for partial financing under this section.
(E) Department advisory letters, conditioned on hospital and project conformity to plans, may be requested by hospitals prior to final plan submission.
(F) Capital projects receiving partial financing under this section shall finance the upgrading or construction of buildings and equipment to a level required by currently accepted medical practice standards, including projects designed to correct Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals and Health Systems fire and life safety, seismic, or other related regulatory standards.
(2) Projects may also expand service capacity as needed to maintain current or reasonably foreseeable necessary bed capacity to meet the needs of Medi-Cal beneficiaries after giving consideration to bed capacity needed for other patients, including unsponsored patients.
(3) (A) Debt service shall only be paid for projects, or for that portion of projects, that are available and accessible to patients treated under this article or by successor programs.
(B) Each project shall cost at least five million dollars ($5,000,000) or, if less than five million dollars ($5,000,000), the project shall be necessary for retention of federal and state licensing and certification and for meeting fire and life safety, seismic, or other related regulatory standards.
(4) Supplemental reimbursement payments shall commence no later than 30 days after receipt of the certificate of occupancy by the hospital.
(5) (A) The state shall pledge to, and agree with, the holders of any revenue bonds issued to finance projects qualifying under this section that until debt service on the revenue bonds is fully paid, or until the supplemental rate is no longer required as provided by this section, the state will not limit or alter the rights vested in the hospital to receive supplemental reimbursement pursuant to this section.
(B) The state shall pledge, and the hospital shall, as a condition of encumbering supplemental reimbursement payments received pursuant to this section, pledge that supplemental reimbursement payments shall be used for the payment of debt service on the revenue bonds. The hospital shall include its pledge and the agreement with the state in any agreement with the holders of the revenue bonds.
(c) The hospital’s supplemental reimbursement for a project qualifying pursuant to subdivisions (a) and (b) shall be calculated as follows:
(1) For any fiscal year for which the hospital is eligible to receive reimbursement, the hospital shall report to the department the amount of debt service on the revenue bonds issued to finance the project.
(2) (A) The department shall use the medicaid inpatient utilization rate as determined pursuant to Section 4112 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-203) to determine the ratio of the hospital’s total paid Medi-Cal patient days to total patient days.
(B) (i) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in determining the hospital’s medicaid inpatient utilization rate for the purposes of this section, the department shall include in both the numerator and denominator all Medi-Cal inpatient days of care provided by the hospital after December 31, 1994, to Medi-Cal beneficiaries who are enrolled in prepaid health plans contracting with the department. Where reliable data regarding those days are available from Medi-Cal prepaid health plans contracting with participating hospitals for services rendered prior to January 1, 1995, that data may be used by the department in the calculations.
(ii) For purposes of this section, Medi-Cal prepaid health plan programs, and the days relating thereto, shall include, but not be limited to, the programs listed in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of Section 14105.985, Section 14089, and any prepaid programs implemented under Section 14087.3, including the two-plan model described in the report issued on March 31, 1993, by the department, entitled “The State Department of Health Services’ Plan for Expanding Medi-Cal Managed Care: Protecting Vulnerable Populations.”
(3) (A) (i) The supplemental Medi-Cal reimbursement to the hospital for each fiscal year shall equal the amount determined annually in paragraph (1) multiplied by the percentage figure determined in paragraph (2). In no instance shall the percentage figure determined pursuant to the ratio derived under paragraph (2) be decreased by more than 10 percent of the initial ratio determined pursuant to paragraph (2) prior to the retirement of the debt.
(ii) Hospitals whose Medi-Cal ratio falls below 90 percent of the initial level established at the point of final plan submission shall at least maintain the volume of Medi-Cal utilization which was recorded at the time of final plan submission unless forces beyond the hospital’s control have decreased the absolute volume of care.
(B) (i) In no instance shall the total amount of reimbursement received under this section combined with that received from all other sources dedicated exclusively to debt service exceed 100 percent of the debt service over the life of the loan.
(ii) A hospital qualifying for and receiving supplemental Medi-Cal reimbursement shall continue to receive the reimbursement until the qualifying loan is paid off, or the hospital is terminated as a Medi-Cal selective contractor and the hospital does not contract with a county organized health system.
(iii) It is the intent of the Legislature that the state and the qualifying hospital shall negotiate in good faith for rates sufficient to ensure continued hospital participation in the program and to ensure adequate access to services for Medi-Cal beneficiaries.
(iv) The state shall not terminate a contract with a qualified provider for the purpose of terminating the capital supplement.
(v) If negotiations fail to permit continuation of a contract of a hospital qualifying for the supplemental Medi-Cal reimbursement, the supplemental Medi-Cal reimbursement shall cease as of the date of discontinuance of the selective provider contract.
(4) In order to ensure provision of qualified supplemental payments to disproportionate share hospitals contracting with county organized health systems, the department shall make the qualified supplemental payments directly to these hospitals.
(5) Funding for these supplemental payments shall be separately appropriated as a line item in the Budget Act for each fiscal year for any project for which a request for payment is received after April 1 of each fiscal year. The department shall request a deficiency appropriation if funds for the payment are not appropriated in the Budget Act.
(6) (A) Paragraphs (1) to (4), inclusive, shall be incorporated into an amendment to any contract entered into by a hospital pursuant to this article.
(B) (i) Any contract amendment required by paragraph (A) shall include a payment methodology based on inpatient hospital services rendered to Medi-Cal patients, either on a per diem basis, a per-discharge basis, or any other federally permissible basis, and which is consistent with the hospital’s Medi-Cal contract.
(ii) The payment methodology specified in clause (i) shall ensure that the hospital, on an annual basis, receives the amount of supplemental reimbursement calculated pursuant to paragraph (3), excluding only the federal portion of costs which have been determined by the federal government not to be allowable under Title XIX of the federal Social Security Act (Subchapter 19 (commencing with Section 1396) of Chapter 7 of Title 42 of the United States Code).
(iii) The payment methodology specified in clause (i) shall contain a retrospective adjustment mechanism to ensure that, regardless of the payment methodology, the department shall pay the hospital the full amount owed to the hospital for the year, as determined pursuant to this section.
(7) In negotiating contracts with hospitals receiving payments under this section, the commission shall take appropriate steps to ensure the duplicate payments are not made to the hospital for the debt service costs relating to the eligible project.
(d) All reimbursement received by a hospital pursuant to this section shall be placed in a special account, the funds in which shall be used exclusively for the payment of debt service on the revenue bonds issued to finance the project.
(e) If contracting under this section is superseded by other arrangements for payment of inpatient hospital services, the successor program shall include separate reimbursement, as determined pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (c).
(f) (1) For purposes of this section, “revenue bonds” are defined as that term is defined in subdivision (c) of Section 15459 of the Government Code, and shall also include general obligation bonds issued by or on behalf of eligible hospitals for projects of more than five million dollars ($5,000,000).
(2) (A) The aggregate principal amount of general obligation bonds to be issued as revenue bonds under this subdivision for the anticipated allowable portion of projects shall not, in any fiscal year, exceed a statewide amount established in the Medi-Cal estimates submitted to the fiscal committees of the Legislature pursuant to Section 14100.5, or as otherwise statutorily determined by the Legislature.
(B) In preparing Medi-Cal estimates, the department shall consider, but need not include, all actual and anticipated projects.
(g) (1) The department shall promptly seek any necessary federal approvals for the implementation of this section, and, if necessary to obtain federal approval, the department may, for federal purposes, limit the program to those costs which are allowable expenditures under Title XIX of the federal Social Security Act (Subchapter 19 (commencing with Section 1396) of Chapter 7 of Title 42 of the United States Code), subject to paragraph (2).
(2) The department shall continue to be responsible for the reimbursement of eligible providers from state funds for the amount of supplemental reimbursement pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (c), excluding only the federal portion of costs which have been determined by the federal government not to be allowable under Title XIX of the federal Social Security Act.
(h) (1) A hospital receiving supplemental reimbursement pursuant to this section shall be liable for any reduced federal financial participation resulting from the implementation of this section.
(2) The department shall submit claims for federal financial participation for all elements of the supplemental reimbursements which are allowable expenditures under federal law.
(3) The department shall, on an annual basis, submit any necessary materials to the federal government to provide assurances that claims for federal financial participation will include only those expenditures which are allowable under federal law.
(4) (A) The department may require that hospitals receiving supplemental reimbursement submit data necessary for the department to determine the appropriate amounts to claim as expenditures qualifying for federal financial participation.
(B) Unless otherwise permitted by federal law, the total statewide payment under the selective provider contracting program, in the aggregate on an annual basis, shall not exceed an amount that would otherwise have been paid under the Medi-Cal program on a statewide basis for the same services, in the aggregate on an annual basis, if the contracting program were not implemented.
(i) (1) Subject to paragraph (2), any hospital that met the criteria specified in subdivision (a) at the time it submitted its final plans for an eligible project in accordance with subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) shall continue to receive reimbursement as set forth in this section irrespective of whether or not the hospital qualifies as a disproportionate share hospital after submission of its final plans.
(2) A hospital that fails to meet the criteria for disproportionate share status on or before June 30, 2002, shall be required to submit data to the department that demonstrates that the hospital failed to meet the criteria for a disproportionate share hospital because its low-income utilization rate, as determined pursuant to Section 4112 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-203), does not exceed 25 percent due to one or more of the following factors:
(A) An increase in outpatient utilization.
(B) A decrease in the average length of stay for Medi-Cal beneficiaries or charity care patients due to technological advances in the provision of care.
(C) Increased implementation within the state of Medi-Cal prepaid health plan programs.
(D) The level of reimbursement that the hospital receives for outpatient visits.
(E) Other circumstances beyond the hospital’s control that affect the hospital’s ability to meet the criteria for disproportionate status, even though the hospital continues to have a mission to provide care to Medi-Cal and charity care patients.
(Amended by Stats. 2001, Ch. 745, Sec. 248. Effective October 12, 2001.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018