A recent federal court ruling allowing a Chicago hospital to sue the state of Illinois’ Medicaid agency for allegedly failing to process proper payment from private insurers, sets the stage for an increase of similar disputes from other healthcare providers nationally. Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of Medicaid, its beneficiaries would lose all means to protect their rights in disputes of similar nature.
Frier Levitt’s A.J. Barbarito was recently quoted in an article published by Modern Healthcare: “Supreme Court to Decide if Medicaid Providers, Patients Can Sue States” by Nona Tepper.
“Most of the disputes between providers and payers are either about the timeliness of payments or whether they’re going to be paid at all for particular services,” said A.J. “This opens the door for providers to bring section 1983 actions against states for timely payment under Medicaid.”
“For the most part, a conservative court is going to view section 1983 claims that expand the rights of individuals to sue the states, they’re going to look at those cases very skeptically,” Barbarito said. “Whereas liberal justices, liberal courts, tend to want to expand the rights of individuals against the state.”
Read the article here (subscription required).