Section 18 Hospital Assessment 1

Said chapter 29 is hereby further amended by inserting after said section 2KKKKK, as so inserted, the following section:-

Section 2MMMMM. (a) There shall be a MassHealth Hospital and Delivery System Reform Trust Fund. The secretary of health and human services shall be the trustee of the fund and shall expend money in the fund to make payments to acute hospitals and other providers or care organizations under contract to provide MassHealth services pursuant to an approved state plan or federal waiver. There shall be credited to the fund: (1) any transfers from the Health Safety Net Trust Fund established in section 66 of chapter 118E; (2) an amount equal to any federal financial participation revenues claimed and received by the commonwealth for eligible expenditures made from the fund; (3) any revenue from appropriations or other money authorized by the general court and specifically designated to be credited to the fund; and (4) interest earned on any money in the fund. Amounts credited to the fund shall be expended without further appropriation.

(b) Money in the fund may be expended for Medicaid payments under an approved state plan or federal waiver; provided, however, that all payments from the fund shall be: (i) subject to the availability of federal financial participation; (ii) made only under federally-approved payment methods; (iii) consistent with federal funding requirements and all federal payment limits as determined by the secretary of health and human services; and (iv) subject to the terms and conditions of an agreement between acute hospitals, other providers or care organizations and the executive office of health and human services. To accommodate timing discrepancies between the receipt of revenue and related expenditures, the comptroller may certify for payment amounts not to exceed the most recent revenue estimates as certified by the secretary of health and human services to be transferred, credited or deposited under this section. Money remaining in the fund at the end of a fiscal year shall not revert to the General Fund.

(c)(1) Effective October 1 of each year, the secretary of health and human services shall expend money in the fund for MassHealth services provided by qualifying acute hospital providers under contract with the executive office of health and human services or under subcontracts with care organizations that contract with the office in connection with the MassHealth program.

(2) The secretary of health and human services shall expend not less than $300,000,000 in payments to qualifying acute hospital providers and other providers or care organizations under contract to provide MassHealth services pursuant to an approved state plan or federal waiver, subject to the terms and conditions of a payment agreement with the executive office of health and human services; provided, however, that the payments shall be in addition to the sum of: (i) the amount of reimbursement otherwise provided for and payable in each contract year to those hospitals under contracts executed pursuant to the request for applications issued periodically by the executive office of health and human services for the procurement of acute hospital services under the MassHealth program; and (ii) the portion, as determined by the secretary, of payments made under the contracts executed between care organizations and the executive office of health and human services which are projected to be needed by the care organizations for payments to hospitals contracted to participate in the provider networks of the care organizations.

This section, along with fifteen others, increases the existing hospital assessment by $100 million in Health Safety Net fiscal year 2022 and maintains an increased and restructured hospital assessment after Health Safety Net fiscal year 2022.