Southwest Healthcare Submits Plan To Prevent CMS Funding Cutoff
On Tuesday, Southwest Healthcare System announced that it has sent CMS a plan aimed at addressing nine federal violations in an effort to delay the planned termination of Medicare reimbursements to its two hospitals, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
On April 15, CMS officials announced plans to cease Medicare reimbursements on June 1 to Southwest's Rancho Springs Medical Center in Murrieta and Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar. During an inspection in January, the agency identified nine violations of the government's 23 conditions of participation in Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare and Medicaid payments make up about 40% of the hospital system's revenue.
Southwest declined to disclose publicly the details of the plan it submitted to CMS. CMS would not indicate when it would make a decision (Hill, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 4/27).
Separately, the California Department of Public Health recently levied three fines totaling $225,000 against Southwest for patient safety violations (California Healthline, 4/16).
In response to the violations, CDPH said that it will seek to revoke Southwest's operating license (California Healthline, 4/22). CDPH officials said the process of revoking the hospital system's license could take up to two years (Riverside Press-Enterprise, 4/27).
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