Court Rules Texas Hospitals Must Exhaust Medicare Appeals Before Suing Over Payment Disputes

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a lower federal court did not have jurisdiction to hear a payment dispute involving Texas hospitals. This ruling reversed the Northern District of Texas decision which had found that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unlawfully limited payments to hospitals serving low-income patients. The appellate court determined that the Texas hospitals had not exhausted Medicare's internal administrative appeals process before seeking judicial review.