Your Home Visiting Nurse Services, Inc. v. Shalala, 525 U.S. 449, 3 (1999)

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Cite as: 525 U. S. 449 (1999)

Opinion of the Court

Services reimburses the providers of covered health services to Medicare beneficiaries, see §§ 1395f(b)(1), 1395h, 1395x(v)(1)(A). A provider seeking such reimbursement submits a yearly cost report to a fiscal intermediary (generally a private insurance company) that acts as the Secretary's agent. See 42 CFR § 405.1801(b) (1997). The intermediary analyzes the cost report and issues a Notice of Program Reimbursement (NPR) determining the amount of reimbursement to which the provider is entitled for the year. See § 405.1803.

As is relevant here, a dissatisfied provider has two ways to get this determination revised. First, a provision of the Medicare Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo, allows a provider to appeal, within 180 days, to the Provider Reimbursement Review Board (Board)—an administrative review panel that has the power to conduct an evidentiary hearing and affirm, modify, or reverse the intermediary's NPR determination. The Board's decision is subject to judicial review in federal district court. § 1395oo(f). Second, one of the Secretary's regulations, 42 CFR § 405.1885 (1997), permits a provider to request the intermediary, within three years, to reopen the reimbursement determination.

Petitioner Your Home Visiting Nurse Services, Inc., owns and operates several entities that provide home health care services to Medicare beneficiaries. Petitioner submitted cost reports for the year 1989 to its fiscal intermediary, and did not seek administrative review of the resulting NPRs within 180 days. Within three years, however, it did ask the intermediary to reopen its 1989 reimbursement determination on the ground that "new and material" evidence demonstrated entitlement to additional compensation. The intermediary denied the request. Petitioner sought to appeal that denial to the Board, but the Board dismissed the appeal on the ground that § 405.1885 divested it of jurisdiction to review an intermediary's refusal to reopen a reimbursement determination.

451

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