Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance - Solutions for Workers' Compensation and Liability Settlements

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

01/Jul/2024

U.S. Supreme Court Fires a Shot at CMS by Overturning the Chevron Deference Case

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-1219, 2024 WL 3208360 (U.S. June 28, 2024), the U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the power of federal courts to interpret federal statutes over agency interpretations of same. While courts have always deferred to agency determinations of fact (for example, demand amounts for repayment of MSP conditional payment liens, denial of payment of medical items, services or expenses by Medicare, or denial of waiver requests by Medicare for repayment of MSP debt for which the four step administrative appeals process before seeking redress in federal District Court has existed), this case signals more power being placed in the hands of the federal judiciary with respect to interpretations of law. It specifically places the power to interpret laws that Congress has enacted into the hands of the federal courts.

The Medicare Secondary Payer Statute originally enacted in 1980 and found at 42 U.S.C. Section 1395y(b)(2) (MSP) is a federal law placing Medicare as a secondary payer to other insurance called primary plans including liability, self-insurance, No Fault, and Workers’ Compensation plans when a primary plan has demonstrated an obligation to pay via judgment, settlement, payment, or other arrangement. The MSP on its face gives Medicare the right to recover any injury related payments (conditional payments) without regard to the timing of the payment. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the sub agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the regulatory agency in charge of administering the Medicare program. Since the enactment of the MSP, CMS has promulgated regulations under the Code of Federal Regulations that have helped implement the MSP.

MSP Enforcement Has Been Focused on Recovery of Conditional Payments up to Date of Settlement

Despite the definition of conditional payments not being limited to dates of service prior to the Date of Settlement, enforcement for the recovery of conditional payments by CMS has been focused on recovery of conditional payments made by Medicare for dates of service from the Date of Injury up to the Date of Settlement. CMS has also written guidance interpreting the MSP, early on in the form of memos and more recently, in the form of the Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement Reference Guide (WCMSA Reference Guide) which incorporates any of CMS’ prior memos it wanted to still be referred to WCMSA Reference Guide v4.0 April 2024.

Often heard by those in the MSP Compliance industry and from CMS at various conferences is the concept that parties are to consider Medicare’s interests in any settlement. The consideration of Medicare’s past interests in any settlement has always been relatively straightforward, with the need for attorneys representing injured parties and the need for primary plan payers to confirm whether Medicare made any injury related payments, and once auditing any payment summaries to confirm injury relation, to pay the proper amount and/or request compromises or waivers for same so that any Medicare lien is addressed at the time or prior to settlement.

What has been more uncertain is whether and how to address Medicare’s future interests in settlements for any primary plan settlement. The area where Medicare Set-Aside allocation reports and the administration of same is most often encountered is in the Workers’ Compensation arena. The WCMSA Reference Guide has become the predominant standard espoused by CMS to protect Medicare’s future interests in Workers’ Compensation settlements that meet CMS’ workload review threshold requirements (for current Medicare beneficiaries, settlements of over $25,000 or for those who have a reasonable expectation of becoming enrolled in Medicare within 30 months of settlements over $250,000, CMS allows a WCMSA allocation report to be reviewed for adequacy)

We have written about the attempts of CMS to promulgate regulations on how Medicare beneficiaries should protect Medicare’s future interest in liability settlements but how on two occasions (most recently in 2022), CMS has withdrawn its intent to address how to adequately protect these Medicare future medicals in liability cases via regulation. Some have speculated that instead of the more formal regulation process, CMS would either update its WCMSA Reference Guide or write a new version specific to liability settlements.

In the absence of specific regulations or guidance, it has been up to the risk tolerance of settling parties in the liability realm to analyze and evaluate best practices to consider Medicare’s future interests, and decide whether to put aside some dollars as a version of a Medicare Set-Aside in liability settlements when the MSP law clearly puts Medicare as a secondary payer to the liability settlement funds used to compensate future medicals, but in light of the various factors that make liability settlements different from Workers’ Compensation and No Fault settlements. We have discussed the differences between types of settlements before, but the main differences are that liability settlements are often constrained by policy limits, may have reductions in payment due to varying degrees of comparative negligence, may include payments for derivative claims of family members (loss of consortium for a spouse or loss of companionship of a minor child as examples), and include a variety of non-economic damages that do not compensate for medicals (Pain and Suffering and Loss of Enjoyment of Life as examples).

Take Aways

Interestingly, this Loper Bright Enterprises case could give rise to a federal court’s interpretation of protection of Medicare’s future interests in a settlement in a way different from CMS’s operational interpretation to only collect conditional payments up to the date of settlement in liability cases. This means there could be a time in the future when more liability plaintiffs will choose to request liability Medicare Set-Aside allocation reports (LMSA’s) from entities that perform medical reviews and analyze the amount, if any should be set aside to protect Medicare’s future interests in light of the unique factors of their case. This means plaintiffs’ attorneys will need to give their clients adequate information to allow for informed consent regarding this Medicare futures issue. While many WC carriers and claimants choose to establish Medicare Set-Asides for use in paying injury related medicals instead of shifting the burden of payment onto Medicare, a lower percentage of injured plaintiffs (or the carriers insuring liability defendants) choose to do the same. Could this decision mean a decision is imminent on how settling parties shall consider Medicare’s future interests in liability settlements? Probably not, but the framework is set for a federal court to take on the issue.

Will this mean that CMS guidance is of no use or that courts won’t read agency guidance? No. However, it does signal a pendulum swing away from a regulatory agency like CMS with more power placed back into the hands of the courts. It is also a warning to Congress to get it right because if a statute is not clear on its face, there seems to be more power placed with the courts to interpret how to implement and how to interpret federal statutes like the MSP.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

14/Nov/2023

On November 13, 2023, CMS hosted a previously announced webinar focused on its upcoming expansion of Total Payment Obligation of Claimant settlement data (TPOC) to be reported under the Medicare Secondary Payer statute’s (MSP) Section 111 Mandatory Insurance Reporting.

The additional TPOC settlement data to be reported specifically includes whether a WCMSA amount was established and if so, any amount above $0.00 so designated, the amount that was approved by CMS (if applicable), the period of coverage (i.e. life expectancy of the injured worker), the funding type – whether funded by lump sum or via a structured annuity (without commenting on any preference or presumptions by CMS if funded one way or another), if funded by structure, the seed amount (a type of down payment estimating the first two years of coverage plus initial surgery for any included body part(s), the anniversary deposit (when additional annuitized payments would be made), the Case Control Number (starts with a W if submitted to CMS for approval or a 0 or 1 if not submitted), and the Professional Administrator’s EIN.

The premise for including the additional WCMSA information with TPOC data is to allow CMS to flag injury related medical diagnosis codes (ICD codes) in the Medicare beneficiaries’ record called the Common Working File (CWF) with a “W” (at least for those WCMSA’s that have been approved) to assist CMS in being more efficient at denying payment for medicals that are injury related and compensated in the TPOC settlement. The Workers’ Compensation (WC) carriers or self insureds appoint Responsible Reporting Entities (RREs) to currently provide Section 111 data for both ongoing claims with Ongoing Responsibility for Medicals (ORMs) and for settlements (TPOCs). Under this expanded reporting data set, RREs would be expected to submit this information for then current Medicare beneficiaries, with testing to occur in 2024 and implementation projected to begin in early 2025 as early as January 2025. While presenter John Jenkins, CMS Health Insurance Specialist, who also presented for CMS when the addition of Section 4.3 in the Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Reference Guide (WCMSA Reference Guide) was announced and when CMS modified that language, made it clear that this expanded reporting expectation would not extend to No Fault or liability settlements compensating for future medicals (i.e. NFMSA’s or LMSA’s), he did say it was intended to cover WCMSA TPOC information even if the WCMSA at issue was not submitted to CMS for review/approval. For example, if the WCMSA allocation report used an Evidenced Based Medicine cost projection Method or other non-submit projection method as opposed to a CMS cost projection methodology espoused under the WCMSA Reference Guide, Jenkins explained that there would still be an expectation that this additional data would be reported to CMS.

Jenkins also indicated that once the WCMSA information is reported under Section 111, notification would be sent to the Medicare beneficiary directly.

As background in describing the history of Section 111, Jenkins reminded listeners that Section 111 is part of the federal MSP statute (42 U.S.C. Section 1395y(b)(2) et seq., and that its provisions were added to the MSP pursuant to the 2007 Medicare and Medicaid SCHIP Extension Act (MMSEA)(implemented a few years later). He also pointed out that in addition to the federal MSP statute, the regulations to the MSP are found in the Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) and that 42 C.F.R. 411.46 specifically, reiterates Medicare as a secondary payer to Workers’ Compensation claims (including for both ORM and TPOC’s, and that nothing in the webinar would replace any existing requirements of Responsible Reporting Entities as to thresholds for reporting ORM or TPOC’s).

Answers to questions from the webinar audience were provided by both Steve Forry, CMS Director Division of MSP Program Operations and presenter, John Jenkins, CMS Health Insurance Specialist.

Questions regarding the webinar’s contents and the subject matter may be submitted to CMS via its dedicated Section 111 email address, s111WCMSA@cms.hhs.gov.

Take Aways

This webinar gives us a glimpse as to how CMS intends to address the EBM and other non-submit WCMSA’s that it originally referenced when it added Section 4.3 to the WCMSA Reference Guide. How CMS will be able to require data for something that is not required by law was not elaborated on and is yet to be seen. However, as we in the MSP industry have always understood, while the WCMSA submission process is and has always been voluntary, we always knew that if you submit for approval, you are essentially now in the CMS arena where you will be playing by its guidance/rules. Now, even if you don’t submit a WCMSA for approval, ostensibly for your RRE to be able to complete the Mandatory Insurance Reporting under Section 111, it seems the WCMSA amount and other new data will be available for CMS to assist it in its quest to comply with the MSP and prevent Medicare from paying until the primary plan’s injury related future compensation has been exhausted.

Claimant attorneys should be made aware of this procedure at the time it is implemented so they can field questions that may come back to them by injured workers. Likewise, adjusters handling WC claims may also get follow up calls asking for clarification and what the notification means. Ultimately, this means that representatives for WC carriers and representatives for injured workers should solidify their methods of providing informed consent to their respective clients so that nobody is surprised when a post settlement injury related medical that is usually Medicare covered is denied. For those who establish WCMSA’s, the solution is to bill the WCMSA, document the expenditure (with items and services priced at the respective fee schedule rate and the prescription drugs at Redbook Average Wholesale Price (AWP), and keep up with attestations to CMS on an annual basis so that once exhausted, Medicare would become primary.

What’s New?

A new coversheet is available for any Non Group Health Plan (NGHP) or agent when corresponding with the Commercial Recovery Center (CRC) and can be found here: CRC NGHP Correspondence Cover Sheet (cms.gov)

The NGHP Appeals Quick Reference Guide was updated and is available here: NGHP Submit Appeals Quick Reference Guide April 2023 (cms.gov)

For Additional Information

Count on Medivest to help keep you up to date with the constant updates, guidance, and rule changes related to CMS’s enforcement of the MSP on a regular basis. For questions, feel free to reach out to the Medivest representative in your area by clicking here or call us direct at 877.725.2467.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

10/Oct/2023

CMS has issued its long-awaited final rule on enforcement of Civil Monetary Penalties regarding failing to register and accurately provide Mandatory Insurance Reporting on those payments that meet the $750 Section 111 reporting thresholds for payments for ongoing Workers’ Compensation (WC) and No Fault claims (Ongoing Responsibility for Medicals or ORM) as well as settlements, judgments, and awards from any primary plan such as any type of liability payment whether insured or self-insured, WC, or No Fault (Total Payment Obligation to Claimant or TPOC).

The CMS Alert on the topic can be viewed here. CMS’s description is that “CMS has finalized its rule specifying how and when CMS will calculate and impose civil money penalties (CMPs) when group health plan (GHP) and non-group health plan (NGHP) responsible reporting entities (RREs) fail to meet their Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) reporting obligations. The text of the final rule can be found and reviewed in its entirety in the Federal Register, which can be found at https://www.federalregister.gov.“ The date of publication in the Federal Register will be October 11, 2023 (with an effective date of December 11, 2023) and will become applicable to primary plans and their RRE’s October 11, 2024. This document is able to be viewed online at, and on https://federalregister.gov/d/2023-22282 and on https://govinfo.gov.

On September 11, 2023, CMS declared this then proposed rule to not be economically significant (i.e. not adversely affect the economy in a material way) clearing the way for the rule’s promulgation.

Take Aways

Medivest has been expecting this rule for years. Most primary plan payers have Responsible Reporting Entities (RRE’s) in place and have established a method of collecting and transmitting the required Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP) data to CMS electronically as intended by the Mandatory Insurance Reporting section (most commonly referred to as Section 111) of the MSP’s MMSEA amendment. Those primary plan carriers and entities that have not established a formalized Section 111 reporting process should be making plans to comply now to avoid the long-awaited enforcement penalties. Additionally, as a result of the final rule coming to fruition after clearing the administrative economic impact process, claimants’ and plaintiffs’ attorneys may likely see more language added by the defense (primary plans) to hold the injured party responsible to provide and/or confirm correct data during the pendency of claims and certainly at the time of settlement of claims, and to timely respond for updates when requested from time to time, if the primary plan’s Section 111 report has been rejected by CMS due to identification data errors so the primary plan can correct same and avert any CMP. Parties should work with their MSP compliance partners and attorneys to make sure procedures are compliant with the MSP and not asking parties to go beyond the MSP or its regulatory rulemaking requirements.

For Additional Information

Medivest will continue to monitor changes occurring at CMS and will keep its readers up to date when such changes are announced. For questions, feel free to reach out to the Medivest representative in your area by clicking here or call us direct at 877.725.2467.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

21/Jun/2023

Some people may be surprised to learn that an individual does not always need to be a citizen of the United States to qualify for government benefits such as Social Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Medicare. Provided the individual receives or qualifies to receive SSI or SSDI benefits, and the person otherwise qualifies for Medicare, a non-US citizen (non-citizen) typically qualifies for Medicare Part A without having to pay a premium. They would still need to pay a premium for Medicare Part B. Before addressing how a non-citizen may become eligible to receive Social Security benefits and therefore, be one step closer to qualifying for Medicare, we will first look at the distinctions between SSI and SSDI and how US citizens become eligible for either.

SSDI and SSI Requirements for U.S. Citizens

For U.S. citizens to qualify for SSDI, they must be under 65, have earned enough work credits¹ by working and paying Social Security (FICA) taxes, and have a qualifying disability sufficient to meet the definition designated by the Social Security Administration (SSA). A majority of those who apply for SSDI do not get accepted on the first try. Many injured individuals have found value in retaining attorneys to help with the application (and the commonly required appeals) process.

A major distinction between SSDI and SSI is that SSI does not require any work history or the need for the individual to be disabled, even though disability is one of the ways a person may qualify for SSI. For example, those that are disabled but haven’t accumulated enough work credits to be eligible for SSDI, may qualify for SSI. Furthermore, U.S. citizens who are 65 or older, or who are blind or are disabled, and have limited income and limited resources, and are not confined to an institution, are generally eligible for SSI. Another important distinction between SSDI and SSI is that once a person receives SSDI benefits for two years² , the SSDI recipient will be eligible for Medicare benefits.

Requirements for Non-U.S. Citizens

If a person is a non-citizen and meets the following requirements, they may be eligible for Social Security benefits:

Non-citizens who are legal permanent residents
Active members or veterans of the U.S. military
Foreign workers who have paid FICA taxes for the required time period³
Other non-citizens who are not permanent residents but who can prove that they are here legally (i.e., refugees, those under political asylum, temporary visitors with non-immigrant visas, abuse victims, etc.)

There are many exceptions and rules regarding non-citizens’ status and SSI and SSDI eligibility. Additionally, non-citizens that are allowed to work in the US but not required to pay FICA taxes (and don’t), are not eligible for SSDI.

Aside from standard SSDI eligibility requirements that everyone must meet*, there are two additional requirements that non-citizens must meet in order to qualify for SSDI:

1. If an individual was assigned a Social Security number on or after January 2, 2004, the individual’s number must have been assigned based on their authorization to work in the U.S. or they must have B-1, D-1, or D-2 worker status.
2. Before receiving disability benefits, the individual must show proof that they are in the U.S. legally.

Non-Citizens Returning to their Countries

Once an individual receives either type of Social Security benefits as a non-citizen, if, when and how these benefits will be distributed depends on the country that they are citizens of and how much time they may spend in that country, whether that country is on a restricted list, and whether that country has a bilateral Social Security agreement with the U.S. Some countries that the SSA is restricted from sending Social Security payments to, such as those listed below, are disqualified from accepting Social Security payments.

- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Cuba
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Moldova
- North Korea
- Tajikstan
- Turkmenistan
- Ukraine
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam

Ineligible Countries

Legal residents from Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam may not receive disability benefits, even if they meet the other necessary requirements.

If a citizen of one of the above-listed countries, other than from Cuba, North Korea or Vietnam, goes back to their home country after working and living in the U.S. and otherwise qualifies for a form of Social Security Benefits, the SSA will not send the individual payments and cannot send the payments to someone else on their behalf (unless an exception is granted). The SSA will withhold these payments and will only send them to the individual once they are in a country to which the U.S. may send those payments. Generally, if the SSA is not restricted from sending payments to a particular country, but the country also does not have a bilateral Social Security agreement in place with the U.S., the SSA can send payments to the individual, but will stop the individual’s payments after the person has been outside of the U.S. for six months. If the individual returns to the U.S. and stays for at least a month, they are usually eligible to begin receiving benefits again. The SSA’s website provides information and exceptions concerning these matters including the difference between a person receiving benefits based on their own earnings or residency in the U.S. versus receiving benefits based on the earnings or residency in the U.S. of a dependent or survivor. A pamphlet that provides additional information is available on SSA’s website.

The Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP), 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2), enacted in 1980 and aimed at preserving Medicare Trust Funds and reigning in Medicare costs that had up to that point been much larger than projected⁴ , is focused on both the timing of payments and the recovery of Medicare’s conditional payments⁵ for medical expenses⁶ of injured Medicare beneficiaries or injured people who have a reasonable expectation of becoming Medicare beneficiaries within 30 months from settlement, when another (primary) payer is responsible for payment or prompt reimbursement of the injured individual’s injury related Medicare covered medical expenses.⁷ There are several ways people fall into the reasonable expectation of becoming a Medicare beneficiary within 30-month time frame, including reaching 62.5 years of age, applying for SSDI, being denied but considering appeal of SSDI denial, being in the process of appealing the denial, or being diagnosed with end-stage renal disease or ALS, a/k/a Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Contact Us

If you have additional questions regarding government benefits for your clients, please reach out to us here. Additionally, if you are involved in a settlement with a client whose government benefits may be at risk, Medivest would like to provide you with the following data chart. It summarizes a variety of public benefit programs and the best course of action you can take to ensure your clients’ benefits are protected. Click here to download.

The number of work credits needed varies based on the age of the individual at the time they become disabled. Required credits start at 6 credits or 1.5 years of work during the three-year period before the disability started for people disabled in or before the quarter they turn 24 years of age and move up to a requirement for 40 qualifying quarters at or after they turn 62 years of age, with varying requirements in between. [↩]
The two-year requirement does not include the approximate six-month wait time between the date disability is approved and benefits begin. Eligibility begins 30 days after the established onset date (EOD) so along with a mandatory five-month waiting period, it is essentially six months before payments start or 30 months from EOD to Medicare eligibility. [↩]
*According to the SSA website, the required work requirements for non-citizens seem to be different from those of US citizens as well. The requirement for non-citizens does not appear to have a sliding scale for work credits that US citizens are required to have. Here is an example of some non-citizen requirements for SSDI eligibility from SSA’s website: “[t]hey are a Lawfully Admitted for Permanent Residence (LAPR) with 40 qualifying quarters of earnings. Work done in the US by a person’s spouse or parent may also count toward the 40 qualifying quarters of earnings, but only for getting SSI. Quarters of earnings earned after December 31, 1996 are not counted if the individual, spouse, or parent worked or received certain benefits from the U.S. government based on limited income and resources during that period. If a person entered the U.S. for the first time on or after August 22, 1996 they may not be eligible for SSI for the first five years as a LAPR, even if they have 40 qualifying quarters of earnings.” More information regarding this topic is available here. Sometimes depending on the country of citizenship, there may also be other ways for a non-citizen to qualify for SSI including living in the US for required periods of time or having a spouse or parent who has lived long enough in the U.S. (See https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf). You are encouraged to consult with an attorney practicing in the SSI and SSDI benefits field to help determine whether any particular person may qualify for Social Security benefits. [↩]
Humana Med. Plan, Inc. v. Western Heritage Ins. Co., 2018 WL 549834 (11^th Cir. Jan. 25, 2018) declining to rehear 2016 11^th Cir. case en banc and citing 5 James B. Wadley, West’s Federal Administrative Practice §6305 2017. [↩]
Or conditional payments by Medicare Advantage Plans that a primary payer should have paid. [↩]
Medical items, services, and expenses, including prescription drug expenses. [↩]
42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(A)(ii) prohibits Medicare from making payment to the extent that “payment has been made or can reasonably be expected to be made under a workmen’s compensation law or plan of the United States or a State or under an automobile or liability insurance policy or plan (including a self-insured plan) or under no-fault insurance.” Furthermore, under the Code of Federal Regulations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has rights to recover any conditional payments Medicare made that a primary payer should have made or reimbursed, specifically, “CMS may initiate recovery as soon as it learns that payment has been made or could be made under workers’ compensation, any liability or no-fault insurance, or an employer group health plan.” 42 C.F.R. § 411.24(b). [↩]

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

26/Oct/2022

On October 13, 2022, in a surprise move, CMS withdrew its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) pertaining to the protection of Medicare’s future interests in liability and other Non Group Health Plan (“NGHP”) settlements, judgments, awards, payments, or other arrangements (“Settlements”) without any official or unofficial comment. Many people in the Medicare Secondary Payer Compliance industry felt that this NPRM, most recently announced in 2018 and continued for several years, was finally going to add CMS’s clarifying “take” on how it would suggest settling parties reasonably consider and protect Medicare’s future interests in liability Settlements and that CMS would issue regulations or guidance specific to Liability Medicare Set-Asides (“LMSAs”).

The most recent 2018 iteration of the NPRM was designed to address protection of Medicare’s future interests in any NGHP Settlement, including removing what it considered obsolete regulations. For the past several years, stakeholders in the MSP compliance community have been waiting and speculating how such regulations could be devised to account for all the convoluted factors that exist in liability claims while adding clarity to steps CMS might suggest to be taken to protect Medicare’s interests in liability settlements.

Earlier in 2022, there had been a stakeholder meeting as well as a letter from the MARC coalition urging CMS to not move forward with the NPRM. It seems that the MSP compliance stakeholder community once again rallied and provided enough reason to give CMS pause. Some have called into question whether the MSP as enacted, gives CMS authority to issue regulations regarding liability futures, and some court decisions discussing liability MSAs and the need for an exhaustion of administrative remedies prior to a court of competent jurisdiction being able to review a LMSA proposal, may have also contributed to CMS’s decision to not move forward with this NPRM at this time.

The argument follows if federal courts have determined it is premature to review proposed LMSAs due to the failure of a party to exhaust their administrative remedies with CMS, then how could CMS insert its own administrative review process via guidance or regulation, unless the MSP were amended to provide for that authority. Examples of court cases discussing these issues, include Silva v. Burwell, 2017 WL 5891753 (D. N.M. 2017); Sipler v. Trans Am Trucking, Inc., 881 F.Supp. 2d 635 (D. N.J. 2012); Bruton v. Carnival Corporation, 2012 WL 1627729 (S.D. Fla. 2012); Abate v. Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P., 2020 WL 7027481 (W.D. Pa. November 30, 2020); and Stillwell v. State Farm, et. al., 2021 WL 4427081 (M.D. Fla., September 27, 2021).

TAKE AWAYS:

The MSP still forbids Medicare from making payment when a primary plan is in place meaning if there is a Settlement from a NGHP plan including from a liability carrier or self-insured defendant, Medicare has a statutory lien right under the MSP to recover its conditional payments minus procurement costs and can charge high interest and potentially even double damages for non-compliance.
If a current Medicare beneficiary settles a liability case, they should be informed about the MSP and a plan for future care should be set in place. The federal law is clear that conditional payments could arise prior to or after a settlement, so a risk tolerance cost benefit analysis should be performed between attorney and plaintiff as to the best steps to ensure Medicare is not prematurely billed.
Medicare has the right under the MSP to deny payment for injury related future Medicare covered medicals (items, services, and expenses, including Prescription Drug Expenses). Will it? We have seen times when it has flagged liability cases even while a liability claim or portion of a liability claim is pending (often because it believes the matter was settled but it was only settled with one of several defendants/carriers). While CMS does not seem to regularly do this, the goal for an attorney representing an injured plaintiff is to provide a settling plaintiff with enough information to make an informed decision regarding what is the best course of action for them and to document what decision was made after such informed consent was provided.
Only two federal circuits (3^rd and 11^th) have held Medicare Part C – Medicare Advantage Plans (MAPs) to have identical recovery rights as traditional Medicare under the MSP. However, those MAPs still have contractual subrogation rights, and attorneys representing Defendants, as well as attorneys representing their plaintiff clients, should evaluate whether any MAP plan or Medicare Part D – Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) have a subrogation/lien interest to be reimbursed for pre-settlement payments that were compensated by the Settlement.
Each attorney should provide their clients with enough information to help them assess their risks and to determine if denial of injury related future medicals or the potential for recovery of future conditional payments by Medicare is a risk they are willing to take. There are a wide range of products being offered to address MSP exposure and to protect Medicare’s interests in liability settlements based on the varying risk tolerance levels of your client. Count on Medivest to help you spot these intricacies so you can deliver prudent advice to your clients.

As background, the Medicare Secondary Payer Statute, found at 42 U.S.C. Section 1395y(b)(2), or most commonly known as the MSP, is the federal law enacted in 1980 that amended the Social Security Act and its Medicare specific amendments to make health plans other than Workers’ Compensation to be primary to Medicare. Workers’ Compensation plans were primary to Medicare from Medicare’s enactment into law in 1965. The MSP was Congress’ mandate to Medicare and The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), the subagency that administers Medicare, forbidding Medicare from making payments when a primary plan was in place to promptly make payment. The primary plans are liability including self-insureds (and automobility BI), No Fault, and Worker’s Compensation and are known as the Non Group Health Plans (NGHP) to be distinguished from Group Health plans that offer health care insurance. While No Fault claims and Workers’ Compensation claims are typically paid immediately upon a claim being filed and accepted for Ongoing Responsibility for Medicals (“ORM”), liability carriers rarely accept responsibility to make payments early on in the life of a liability case. Liability carriers may choose to offer a settlement but almost never accepts liability.

Because the regulations under the MSP define prompt payment as within 120 days, the MSP also allows Medicare to make payments for medical services when a Medicare beneficiary will be compensated by a defendant in a liability case or their/its primary plan carrier under the condition that Medicare be able to recover those conditional payments it made that were claim related and compensated by a settlement, judgment, award, or other arrangement (collectively, “Settlement”). The MSP makes the primary plan Defendant, and any person or entity who receives a part of the Settlement proceeds, jointly and severally liable for repayment of conditional payments. The law also allows for interest and potentially double damages against liable people and entities that fail to make payment promptly.

The payment by any NGHP plan is what triggers the MSP’s recovery rights under the law regardless of whether liability is accepted or not. The protection of exposure to the MSP’s recovery rights is also commonly referred to as protecting Medicare’s past and future interests in a Settlement. Protecting Medicare’s past interests in a settlement includes providing notification of a claim and checking with CMS to determine whether it is claiming any payments it has made from the date of an injury up to the date of settlement are conditional payments to be reimbursed. Plaintiff attorneys typically provide this type of notification or hire third parties to confirm whether there are any conditional payments and then report settlement details to obtain a discount from the conditional payment amount and obtain a demand from CMS reflecting a deduction for pro-rated fees and expenses allowed under the regulations to the MSP.

The regulations to the MSP include some regulations that are generally applicable to any of the NGHP plans and some that are specific to Workers’ Compensation claims and Settlements. CMS has never promulgated regulations that are specific to liability claims or No Fault claims and Settlements. CMS has also issued guidance regarding the protection of Medicare’s future interests in Workers’ Compensation claims and Settlements via its Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement (“WCMSA”) Reference Guide, now in version 3.7 issued June 6, 2022.

In 2012, CMS issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the protection of Medicare’s future interests in settlements intended to extend from the already regulated area of Workers’ Compensation (“WC”) Settlements to the other NGHP areas and even solicited comments from the MSP stakeholder community. After many entities pointed out the extreme differences between liability claims and WC claims such as issues of comparative or contributory negligence, the fact that liability claims often contain awards for Pain and Suffering, Loss of Enjoyment of Life, Loss of Consortium for married plaintiffs, etc., CMS ultimately withdrew that NPRM in 2014.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

08/Jun/2022

U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Florida’s Medicaid Program Allowing Reimbursement of Paid Medicals from Settlement Funds (Including Funds Intended as Future Medicals)

We previously wrote about this case Will the U.S. Supreme Court Mandate Protection of Medicaid Futures? when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the issue.

The issue in Gallardo v. Marstiller was whether Florida’s state-based Medicaid program (Agency for Healthcare Administration or AHCA) could recover its injury related medical payments from the portion of a tort settlement from a third party that compensated for damages other than past medicals. The underlying liability case involved a Florida minor who suffered lifelong catastrophic injuries when she was a passenger in a motor vehicle that was hit by a pickup truck in 2008. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 vote, upheld Florida Medicaid’s effort to recover its injury related paid medical claims from the portion of the settlement that compensated for past or future medical damages.

As the court opinion detailed, “Gallardo, through her parents, sued the truck’s owner and driver, as well as the Lee County School Board. She sought compensation for past medical expenses, future medical expenses, lost earnings, and other damages. That litigation resulted in a settlement for $800,000, with $35,367.52 expressly designated as compensation for past medical expenses. The settlement did not specifically allocate any amount for future medical expenses.”

Many states such as Florida have a statutory formula setting forth the framework for when the state Medicaid agency shall reduce its reimbursement. However, state law in almost all states allows some discretion to the state-based agency directors to allow for waivers or partial waiver of the amounts contemplated by the applicable statute(s), or instead often allow a Medicaid member to petition for exceptions to the statutory formula.

The opinion elaborated that the State of Florida’s “statutory framework entitled the State to $300,000—i.e., 37.5% of $800,000, the percentage that statute sets as presumptively representing the portion of the tort recovery that is for “past and future medical expenses,” absent clear and convincing rebuttal evidence.” (citing Florida Statutes §§409.910(11)(f )(1), (17)(b)). The opinion then explained that Gallardo had “challenged the presumptive allocation in an administrative proceeding.”

In Florida, that type of administrative challenge is pursued under a Chapter 120 Administrative Hearing under the Administrative Procedure Act before the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH). For example, a petitioner may request a declaratory statement which would be an opinion on the application of a particular regulatory statute, agency rule, or agency order to the petitioner’s individual situation. A declaratory statement is a final agency action and is subject to judicial review. This is how the Gallardo decision began making its way through the court system. In state court, the applicable state court determined that Florida’s Medicaid lien only applied to that portion of the settlement reserved for past medicals. On appeal at the 11^th Circuit, the Federal Circuit Court upheld Florida Medicaid’s position that its lien extended to any medical damages paid in a settlement including future medicals. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the 11th Circuit Court’s decision, holding that Florida’s Medicaid agency could obtain reimbursement of its paid medicals from any portion of a settlement that compensated for medicals including funds slated as future medicals.

The U.S. Supreme Court discussed why Medicaid agencies have an exception to the federal anti-lien law and have been mandated to collect from medical damages of settlements as opposed to the property of the injured party, as announced in the Court’s prior decisions of Arkansas Dept. of Health and Human Servs. v. Ahlborn, 547 U. S. 268, 284 (2006) and Wos v. E.M.A., 568 U. S. 627, 633 (2013). The Court explained the distinction in Wos focused on the ability of a state Medicaid agency to obtain its reimbursement from medical damages versus non-medical damages.

The Ahlborn and Wos decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court helped pave the way for what is commonly referred to as equitable distribution or equitable reimbursement based on a Made Whole theory. In those decisions, if the parties provided evidence of the full value of the case based on damages apart from medical damages and could show that the case settled for an amount lower than the full value because the plaintiff was not Made Whole, that the reimbursement should come from medical compensation only, and implied that a request could be made to reduce the Medicaid recovery accordingly. If a portion of the settlement was allocated to damages other than past medicals (such as other economic damages including past and/or future wage loss or future medicals, and/or non-economic damages including Pain and Suffering, Loss of Enjoyment of Life, or derivative claims such as Loss of Consortium), it would be argued that the respective Medicaid program would be limited to recovery from those damages allocated to past medicals and if factors like comparative negligence or difficulties of proof of liability existed, further reductions could be requested.

Interestingly, Judge Clarence Thomas, pointed out that the parties had not allocated the amount of the settlement designated as future medical expenses.

Briefs in the case were filed by or on behalf of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Government Finance Office, 14 state Medicaid agencies on the side of Florida Medicaid (UT, OH, AL, AR, GA, KS, LA, MT, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TX), as well as the American Justice Association, the Florida Justice Association, the American Academy of Physician Life Care Planners on the side of Gallardo. At this time, it is unknown how far reaching this decision will be regarding the need for formal allocations of future injury related medicals for Medicaid cases in Florida or other states.

Take Aways and Food for Thought

As it pertains to resolving liens, is it more likely that state Medicaid agencies and their recovery agents will become more aggressive in pursuing their reimbursement/lien recoveries from any and all portions of settlements?

Shouldn’t a showing that a large part of the compensation from a third party liability settlement was intended to compensate for non-medical damages still be taken into consideration to determine whether an exception should be granted by a state Medicaid agency in pursuing its medical reimbursement/lien recovery?

If it is determined that Medicaid is entitled to at least some portion of the expected accident-related Medicaid futures, how might this affect how Medicare Set-Aside (MSA) allocation reports would be prepared and/or funded when beneficiaries are dual enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid?

For settlements involving injured parties who are duel enrolled, with the complexity of administering funds set aside for protection of Medicare’s future interests heightened, wouldn’t professional administration of those MSA funds seem to be prudent?

Will this decision lead to a higher percentage of liability cases involving Medicaid members going to court for state court allocation determination of the various damages awarded in injury cases?

Will this decision lead to a higher percentage of plaintiff’s counsel petitioning for administrative hearings before the state equivalent of Florida’s Division of Administrative Hearings to resolve difficult and high value liens?

If Florida’s Medicaid agency will be allowed to be reimbursed from funds reserved for future medicals, could it someday request funds to be set aside from settlements to reimburse it for future medicals to be paid by Medicaid after the date of settlement (i.e. a Medicaid Set-Aside)?

Count on Medivest to help you navigate through the complexities of Medicaid liens and questions regarding reimbursement claims and plans for future care out of settlement proceeds.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

19/Dec/2020

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provided an alert on November 25, 2020 that it reviewed the costs related to collecting Medicare’s conditional payments and compared the cost to CMS recovery amounts, and decided to leave the threshold for physical trauma-based liability insurance settlements (including self-insurance settlements) at $750. Additionally, CMS indicated it will keep the $750 threshold for No-Fault insurance and Workers’ Compensation settlements, where the No-Fault insurer or Workers’ Compensation entity does not otherwise have ongoing responsibility for medicals (ORM). Otherwise, once ORM reaches $750 for either No Fault or Workers’ Compensation plan claims, those payments need to be reported for Medicare beneficiaries via Section 111 Reporting. These described reporting thresholds do not apply to settlements for alleged ingestion, implantation, or exposure cases.

Take Aways:

Those settlements falling under any of the above described categories of insurance or self-insurance commonly referred to as Non-Group Health Plans (NGHP) will not need to be reported under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP) via Section 111 and will also not be subject to recovery claims by Medicare under the MSP.

See this web link for the CMS Alert regarding these NGHP reporting thresholds: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2021-recovery-thresholds-certain-liability-insurance-no-fault-insurance-and-workers-compensation.pdf

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

12/Nov/2019

A. How and When Medicare Liens Arise

Under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act, found at 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b) (MSP), Medicare has a right to be reimbursed for payments it has made for a Medicare beneficiary’s medical treatment when the Medicare beneficiary is compensated for the treated injury by a third-party source. While Medicare’s rights to recovery under the MSP are so strong that they have been described as a super lien, that does not mean that your client has to always pay the full amount requested by Medicare.

The MSP right to reimbursement includes both a direct statutory right and a subrogation right, with a variety of recovery remedies available to the U.S. Government. In some jurisdictions, similar MSP recovery rights extend to privately administered Medicare benefits under Part C (Medicare Advantage Organizations or MAO’s) and Part D Prescription Drug Plans via the MSP’s private cause of action provision. The recovery rights described exist without regard to the date of service for the medical items, services, or expenses (medicals). Most attorneys know that they should check to see if traditional Medicare or a MAO has paid for medicals related to a compensated injury and address paying the amount or negotiating payment for same from the settlement proceeds. This article will explore ways to secure satisfactory lien resolution, focusing on traditional Medicare liens.

It should be noted that if a Medicare beneficiary begins billing Medicare or a MAO for injury related medicals after the settlement date/date compensated for the tort claim, recovery rights associated with those post settlement medicals exist in the same way that recovery rights exist for pre-settlement injury related Medicare covered medicals. Under such a post settlement scenario, the need for a Medicare lien investigation and resolution could essentially start all again.

B. Medicare Secondary Payer statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b) (MSP)

1. History of the Medicare Act and the Medicare Secondary Payer Act.

a. Background and Scope – Both arise from the Social Security Act of 1935. Medicare is a federally funded single payer national healthcare insurance administered by the U.S. federal government, through the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) under authority of the Social Security Act of 1935. Medicare is funded by a payroll tax, premiums and surtaxes from beneficiaries, and general revenue. HHS delegates running the Medicare program and interpreting Medicare law and implementing regulations to the law to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Medicare covers medical expenses not on the list of exclusions found in 42 U.S.C. §1395y(a)(1) typically for U.S. Citizens (although exceptions exist allowing eligibility for some non-US Citizens as well), who are 65 and older, or younger than 65 with disability status determined by the Social Security Administration as well as people with end stage renal disease (ESRD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). It is made up of parts such as Part A (mainly inpatient hospital insurance and skilled nursing care) and Part B (doctor visits, durable medical equipment, outpatient hospital care and some physical and occupational therapy and some home health care), the two together are known as traditional Medicare; Part C, covering Part A and B services but administered by private insurers; and Part D, covering Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs) that are also administered by private insurers.

b. SSDI is for people who qualify under the Social Security Administration’s definition of disability. SSDI payments start about 5-6 months after SSDI eligibility is determined depending on the date eligibility is first established. Individuals approved for SSDI also become eligible and qualify for Medicare two years after they begin receiving the SSDI payments. Both SSDI and Medicare are entitlement-based in contrast with Medicaid and SSI, that are largely needs-based.

c. Since the Medicare law’s inception in 1965, Medicare has been secondary to Workers’ Compensation. Therefore, if an injury occurred while at work, the Workers’ Compensation carrier would take responsibility for payment of those injury related medicals in accordance with the applicable state statutory rates and procedures. However, in 1965, there was no provision in the law pertaining to payment of medical bills related to liability claims for injured Medicare beneficiaries. Therefore, Medicare would (most often) pay for all medical treatment within its scope, leaving private insurers (other insurance) to work out who would cover non-Medicare covered services.

2. The Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP) was Enacted in 1980.

a. In 1980, the Medicare Secondary Payer Statute (MSP) was enacted. 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b) et seq. is commonly called the MSP Act or MSP Statute and is also referred to as the Medicare Secondary Payer provisions of the Social Security Act (SSA). While it has different statutory references, it is the same law and has parallel sequences of each number and letter after the section 1395y or 1862 as follows: 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b) = 42 U.S.C. §1862(b) of the SSA.

b. The MSP mandates Medicare to be a secondary payer to other forms of health insurance such as group health plans (GHPs), as well as other payment sources such as non-group health plans (NGHPs) when these primary plans are responsible for payment.

c. A “primary plan” is defined in 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2)(A) to mean “a group health plan or large group health plan to the extent that clause (i) applies, and – a workers’ compensation law or plan, – an automobile or liability insurance policy or plan (including a self-insured plan) – or no fault insurance, to the extent that clause (ii) applies. An entity that engages in a business, trade or profession shall be deemed to have a self-insured plan if it carries its own risk (whether by a failure to obtain insurance, or otherwise) in whole or in part. 42 U.S.C. 1395y(b)(2)(A)(ii).”

d. All plans other than the group health or large group health plans are categorized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as Non Group Health Plans (NGHPs). While the MSP applies to Group Health matters, it is in the NGHP area that the MSP compliance industry focuses its attention. NGHPs are those entities that demonstrate obligations of payment as primary payers by either statute (think workers’ compensation or no fault insurance) or by virtue of resolution of claims through settlement, judgment, award or other payment (think liability matters), regardless of whether liability is admitted. Most liability releases specifically deny liability for alleged liability claims. The payment obligation that triggers the MSP arises in the tort scenario when payment is made. There are no defenses listed in the MSP associated with how the demonstration of the obligation arises; when a party begins to make payments under a statute or contract for insurance such as workers’ compensation or under the state’s no fault law under terms of an insurance contract, or when a party settles a liability case, the payment obligation is “demonstrated” and the party responsible for payment is by the MSP, primary to Medicare.

e. The MSP was enacted to curb the rising costs of Medicare and designed to make insurers responsible for payment of injury related treatment primary payers and Medicare, the secondary payer. See Humana Medical Plan, Inc. v. Western Heritage Insurance Company, 832 F.3d 1229, 1234 (11th Cir. 2016). Regulations interpreting the MSP are found at 42 C.F.R. §411 et. seq.

f. To accomplish the goal of curbing Medicare costs, the MSP general rule – 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2)(A) – prohibits Medicare from making payment when a primary plan should make the payment. Specifically, a Medicare payment may not be made
“to the extent that –
(i) payment has been made, or can reasonably be expected to be made, with respect to the item or service as required under paragraph (1) [pertaining to GHPs], or
(ii) payment has been made or can reasonably be expected to be made under a workmen’s compensation law or plan of the United States or a State or under an automobile or liability insurance policy or plan (including a self-insured plan) or under no-fault insurance.”

g. There is only one exception to the prohibition of Medicare making payment when there is a primary payer that should make the payment. The exception authorizes Medicare to make payments called conditional payments if a primary plan “has not made or cannot reasonably be expected to make payment with respect to such item or service promptly.” 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2)(B)(i).

Prompt or promptly, when used in connection with primary payments, except as provided in § 411.50, for payments by liability insurers, means payment within 120 days after receipt of the claim. 42 C.F.R. § 411.21.
Under 42 C.F.R. §411.50, prompt or promptly, when used in connection with payment by a liability insurer means payment within 120 days after the earlier of the following:
(1) The date a claim is filed with an insurer or a lien is filed against a potential liability settlement.
(2) The date the service was furnished or, in the case of inpatient hospital services, the date of discharge. 42 C.F.R. § 411.50

The payments allowed to be made by Medicare are considered “conditioned on reimbursement” to Medicare by the primary plan. These payments could occur either before a settlement or after a settlement so settling parties should always address and make sure to resolve conditional payments a/k/a Medicare liens that arose prior to settlement from the settlement proceeds (even if negotiated to a compromised/reduced number) and additionally, due to the MSP, settling parties should also consider how to avoid conditional Medicare payments after a settlement.

h. Congress enacted the MSP provisions to address enforcement of Medicare as a secondary payer to WC and included the various other types of insurance as primary plans at that time.

i. Between 1980 and 2001, there was very little enforcement of the MSP.

j. CMS Memos of note. In July 2001, CMS issued the Patel memo which mentioned Medicare Set-Asides (MSAs) for the first time. In 2011 – the Stalcup Memo from the Dallas CMS Regional Office was the first time liability MSAs (LMSA’s) were mentioned in a CMS memo with the most detailed guidance on CMS’s position of a need to consider and protect Medicare’s interests for liability as well as Workers’ Compensation settlements to protect the Medicare Trust Funds in a manner consistent with the MSP.

k. The MSP gives Medicare both direct “lien rights” (42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii)) to be able to collect its conditional payments as well as subrogation rights whereby the MSP subrogates the United States to “any right under this subsection of an individual or any other entity to payment with respect to such item or service under a primary plan.” 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b)(2)(B)(iv). This can be an important distinction when it comes to how CMS and courts interpret whether and to what extent an apportionment calculation may be performed to the outstanding conditional payment amount by discounting procurement costs including attorney’s fees and costs in securing the settlement, judgment or award. Actions by the U.S. on behalf of HHS/CMS via the MSP’s direct right of recovery (through the Department of Treasury or potentially the Department of Justice) against entities responsible for payment or those that have received some of the settlement proceeds is separate from its right of subrogation to recover reimbursement of Medicare conditional payments. The MSP’s direct right of recovery has in some cases been interpreted to not be limited by the equitable principle of apportionment stemming from the subrogation right. See Social Security Act, § 1862(b)(1), (b)(2)(B)(ii), as amended, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1395y(b)(1), (b)(2)(B)(ii); 42 C.F.R. § 411.24(c). Zinman v. Shalala, 67 F.3d 841 C.A.9 (Cal.1995).

l. Considering Medicare’s future interests. Without a plan for future care, CMS’s policy regarding settlements has been to presume that the entire settlement amount is designed to compensate the injured party for future medical expenses. While CMS has not yet promulgated regulations regarding how Medicare beneficiaries should ideally protect Medicare’s future interests, because the MSP liability extends to the primary payer as well as any entity or person that receives payment from a primary payer, it is common for settling parties to discuss and consider and sometimes estimate Medicare’s potential future exposure (and therefore the potential recovery that could result from said exposure) on a case prior to settlement. This analysis may involve the use of a MSA allocation report.

m. Having an injured party agree to use other insurance or to agree not to bill Medicare is not adequate according to CMS’s Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement (WCMSA) Reference Guide. This Reference Guide focuses on the voluntary submission process for MSA’s in the Workers’ Compensation realm that meet certain workload review threshold dollar/time frame criteria. In the absence of a corollary guide for liability settlements, the WCMSA Reference Guide stands as the current CMS policy for all NGHP matters such as liability (including self-insurance), automobile, Workers’ Compensation, and No Fault settlements. With respect to any matter or settlement inside or outside the WCMSA Reference Guide workload review thresholds, CMS has indicated that without a plan for future care, CMS could deny injury related medicals up to the entire amount of the settlement. (See discussion on pages 8-9, under Section 8.1, titled Review Thresholds).

n. Keep in mind that there is no reference to a MSA in the MSP or any of its corresponding regulations. While Liability MSA allocation reports (LMSA’s) are not currently being reviewed by CMS Regional Offices or the Workers Compensation Review Contractor (WCRC), the current contract that started in 2018 that the WCRC operates under, contemplated some level of review for LMSAs. While regulations or at least notification of regulations, are expected as early as October 2019 regarding protection of future interests for liability settlements, parties in the liability field (and Workers’ Compensation settlements outside of workload review threshold time periods/amounts) have generally been left to “read between the lines” as to what is an adequate consideration and protection of Medicare’s future interests. For those Medicare beneficiaries that are more risk adverse, an option exists to request the respective Regional Office (RO) to update the common working file of any Section 111 reported settlement with an agreed LMSA amount in an effort to help provide a ceiling to the amount of money that would need to be exhausted before Medicare should begin paying for the injured plaintiff’s injury related Medicare covered medicals. Attorneys should counsel their clients to explain these sensitive issues and document their files in a way that will help show how Medicare’s interests were considered in the settlement.

o. In conjunction with considering a Life Care Plan and possible consultation with an economist, plaintiffs’ counsel may also choose to obtain a LMSA to learn of potential future medical expenses (whether Medicare allowable and reimbursable or not) as an aid to understanding and articulating some of these important economic damages for his or her injured client. Defense counsel will typically want to do their own calculations according to the standards set by CMS policy to get a grasp on the Medicare exposure issue regarding future medicals. This article will not address the protection of Medicare’s future interests further, or the intricacies of equitable apportionment, as it relates to LMSA’s. However, evaluating a plan for future care such as setting aside a reasonable amount of funds for Medicare allowable and reimbursable future medicals, and restricting the spending of those funds to injury related Medicare allowable medicals, can often be a wise MSP compliance procedure. The balance of this article will focus on protecting Medicare’s past interests by investigating and addressing a variety of Medicare based conditional payment reimbursement claims (commonly referred to as liens) at or near the time of settlement.

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

22/Mar/2019

Medicare Advantage Plan MSP Private Cause of Action Lawsuit Update

1. MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc. — F.3d —- 2019 WL 1233207 18-11816 (11th Cir. March 18, 2019).

On March 18, 2019, in MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc., the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals made it clear that while Medicare law as a whole and the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP)[1] provisions in particular may be confusing, the MSP’s private cause of action provision [2] is clear[3]. MSPA Claims 1 (MSPA) appealed its dismissal by Defendant Tenet at the district court level in the Southern District of Florida. Because some changes had taken place since the dismissal, the appellate court indicated that MSPA was on solid legal footing if it had sued a primary plan instead of a medical provider. The take away of the Tenet case is that Medicare beneficiaries or entities such as Medicare Advantage Plans/Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) that wish to bring private cause of action claims under the MSP may not bring those claims against medical providers and must only bring those MSP private cause of action double damages (MSP PCOA) claims against primary plans that fail to timely pay or reimburse the aggrieved party.

As a reminder, the MSP makes Medicare secondary to all primary plans including both Group Health Plans and Non Group Health Plans. Non Group Health Plan primary plans include Automobile Insurers, Liability Insurance (including Self Insurance),Workers’ Compensation (WC) Plans or Insurance, and No Fault Insurance.

In many other MSP PCOA MAO cases that have been reported, MAO’s have typically sued primary plans that failed to pay. Most courts that have evaluated the issue of the right of the MAO’s to bring MSP PCOA claims have acknowledged the right of MAO’s or their assigns to bring MSP PCOA claims against primary plans. By contrast, the Tenet case involved an assignee of a MAO that sued a medical provider. The dismissal of MSPA at the district court level for this case focused on deficiencies in MSPA’s assignment chain and not on which entity could be sued under the MSP private cause of action. The key MSP PCOA language that was analyzed in the Tenet case is as follows:

There is established a private cause of action for damages (which shall be in an amount double the amount otherwise provided) in the case of a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or appropriate reimbursement) in accordance with paragraphs (1) and (2)(A).

42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A).

Comparing the limitations associated with the private cause of action with the public cause of action granted by the U.S. government in the MSP, the Eleventh Circuit clarified in Tenet that “[u]nlike the private cause of action, the government’s cause of action broadly permits lawsuits against ‘any entity that has received a payment from a primary plan’ – a grant that includes medical providers.” Id. (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii)(the MSP direct cause of action by the U.S.); Haro v. Sebelius, 747 F. 3d 1099, 1116 and U.S. v. Stricker, 524 F. App’x 500, 504 (11th Circ. 2013)(unpublished)). This means that while providers, attorneys, Medicare beneficiaries, or other entities that receive payment from a primary plan can be sued by the U.S. under the MSP for double damages, only primary plans themselves can be sued under the MSP PCOA.

Before reaching its decision, the Tenet court went through an analysis to confirm subject matter jurisdiction by determining whether MSPA had standing to pursue the claim. To that end, MSPA would need to show that it suffered an injury-in-fact, that was fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, and which was redressable by a favorable judicial decision. Id. at 2. The underlying federal claim revolved around the failure of the provider, Tenet, to pay a $286 medical bill on time. The bill was eventually paid approximately seven months late. Interestingly, the Eleventh Circuit explained that late payment was enough to show a concrete “injury-in-fact”. The Tenet court also explained why the assignment hurdles that had stopped MSPA at the district court level had been overcome at the time of the court’s decision. The district court evaluated the two-level assignment chain when the assignment chain was weak because the assignor, Florida Healthcare Plus (FHCP), had entered receivership proceedings and previously repudiated its assignment to La Ley, the entity that assigned the MSP PCOA claim to MSPA. The Eleventh Circuit in Tenet explained that just one week before its decision, FHCP entered into a settlement agreement with La Ley and MSPA that confirmed La Ley’s assignment of FHCP’s claim to MSPA and fully resolved the MSP Act assignment. Id. at 4. The court also dispelled Defendant/Appellee Tenet’s notion that an anti-assignment clause in a Hospital Services Agreement with assignee FHCP concerning the prohibition to assign hospital services would apply to the right of FHCP to assign its right (it received from the MAO) to La Ley that in turn assigned to MSPA the right to bring the MSP PCOA claim.

The Eleventh Circuit used established statutory interpretation rules to reach its final decision. MSPA argued that because paragraph (2)(A) that the private cause of action references makes a cross-reference to paragraph (2)(B), which establishes MSP conditional payment reimbursement and recovery (see MSP recovery actions by the U.S. and information on Medicare lien resolution and the new electronic payment functionality of the Medicare Secondary Payer Recovery Portal) rights, those recovery right concepts from paragraph (2)(B) should be incorporated back into the private cause of action. Essentially, MSPA was arguing that because other entities that receive payments from primary plans had obligations to reimburse Medicare for conditional payments and (2)(B) applies those recovery rights to this larger number of entities (“any entity that receives payment from a primary plan”), that the MSP PCOA could also be brought against any such entity that received a payment from a primary plan. This cross reference within a cross reference argument was shot down by the Tenet court as a “stretch.” Id. at 6. Alternatively, MSPA asked the court to rule in its favor based on authority from CMS promulgated regulations that afford MAOs the same MSP recovery rights as Medicare including the right to sue medical providers. Id. at 6 (citing 42 C.F.R.§§411.24(g), 422.108(f)). However, the Tenet court found the MSP statute to be clear and unambiguous and therefore, determined it unnecessary to look to the less authoritative CMS regulations for help with its interpretation of the MSP. Id. at 6. Because neither defendant was a primary plan, MSPA’s claim was dismissed.

2. MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Infinity Property & Casualty Group, 2019 WL 1238852 (N.D. Al. March 18, 2019).

This second case was decided on the same day as the Tenet case but was heard at the federal trial level in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Alabama. This court falls within the same appellate jurisdiction (Eleventh Circuit) that decided the Tenet case. The same MSPA plaintiff discussed in the Tenet case above filed suit as an assignee of two different MAO’s on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries identified with their initials as representative examples (exemplars) for each of the two MAO’s. The asserted claims were MSP PCOA claims against insurance company, Infinity Property & Casualty Group, an undisputed primary payer. If the facts in this Infinity case were the same as those in the Tenet case except that the Defendant in this Infinity case was a primary payer instead of a medical provider, the case would have not been dismissed. However, the facts in this case were distinguishable from those of the Tenet case beyond who was sued. In the first claim of the Infinity case, MSPA was found by the court to have failed to show that Florida Healthcare Plus (FHCP – the same entity that was involved in a chain of assignments in the Tenet case), a MAO, had paid any medical bill connected to a claim of the exemplar Medicare beneficiary identified as D.W. The court seemed perturbed in announcing that Plaintiff MSPA knew what the court required but “due to a lack of either diligence or ability” failed to produce it. MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Infinity Property & Casualty Group, 2019 WL 1238852 at 7 (N.D. Al. March 18, 2019). Without the connection to show that the MAO made a payment on behalf of the Medicare beneficiary, the Infinity court declared MSPA lacked standing to bring the claim.

The second claim of the Infinity case involved a MAO named Simply Healthcare Plans, Inc., its Management Service Organization (MSO) named InterAmerican Medical Center Group, LLC, and an exemplar Medicare beneficiary identified as B.G. The Infinity court pointed out that while the Eleventh Circuit in Western Heritage ruled that MAO’s accrue MSP PCOA recovery rights at the time they make conditional payments, the appellate court had not yet decided if the MSP statute also provides a private cause of action to MSO’s. Id. at 7 (citing Humana Medical Plan Inc. v. Western Heritage Ins., 832 F.3d 1229 (11th Cir. 2016). The Infinity court noted that district courts in the Eleventh Circuit and elsewhere overwhelmingly ruled that it does not. Id. (citing MSPA Claims I, LLC v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins., 322 F. Supp. 3d 1273, 1283 (S.D. Fla. 2018); MAO-MSO Recovery II, LLC et al. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins., 1:17-CV-1541-JBM-JEH, 2018 WL 2392827, at *7 (C.D. Ill. May 25, 2018). The Infinity court cited one case in which a district court did not rule out the possibility of MSO’s having MSP PCOA rights, citing MAO-MSO Recovery II, LLC v. Mercury General, 17-2525-AB and 17-2557-AB, 2018 WL 3357493, at *7 (C.D. Cal. May 23, 2018). The Infinity court followed the Eleventh Circuit’s Western Heritage reasoning that because the MSP does not provide conditional payment reimbursement authority to MSO’s and does not obligate MSO’s to make secondary payments to be reimbursed, the obligations of a MSO would be contractual as opposed to statutory. Id. at 8. Therefore, the court declined to expand the scope of potential plaintiffs under the MSP PCOA beyond those listed in Western Heritage (a MAO when the MAO makes a conditional payment for healthcare services, by a Medicare beneficiary when the Medicare beneficiary had healthcare services paid by Medicare (or a MAO), or a healthcare provider when that healthcare provider has not been fully paid for services provided to a Medicare beneficiary).

The Infinity court also pointed out some potential flaws in the assignment chain to the MSO from another entity called IMC which by contract, needed to approve the assignment of any purported MSP rights from the MSO to MSPA unless it was “ministerial in nature.” Because the evidence presented that the assignment was ministerial in nature failed to explain how it met the definition of that term in the contract, it failed the preponderance of the evidence standard, and the Infinity court found MSPA failed to show a valid assignment under its potential MSO claim.

Take Aways:

In the Eleventh Circuit (covering Florida, Georgia and Alabama), it is now clear that the following can sue a primary plan (only) under the MSP’s private cause of action:
• (1) a MAO when the MAO makes a conditional payment for healthcare services,
• (2) a Medicare beneficiary when the Medicare beneficiary had healthcare services paid by Medicare (or a MAO), or
• (3) a healthcare provider when that healthcare provider has not been fully paid for services provided to a Medicare beneficiary
____________________________________________________________
[1] 42 U.S.C. 1395y(b)(2) et seq.

[2] 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A).

[3] MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc. — F.3d —- 2019 WL 1233207 18-11816 (11th Cir. March 18, 2019) (citing The Federalist No. 62, at 421 (James Madison) (Jacob E. Cook ed., 1961) and MSP Recovery, LLC v. Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F. 3d 1351, 1358 (11th Cir. 2016).

Natt Reifler, Esq., CMSP, VP of MSP Compliance

13/Mar/2019

During the 21 years between 1980 and 2001, it is no secret that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did very little to enforce the Medicare Secondary Payer statute (a series of provisions beginning at 42 U.S.C. §1395y(b) commonly referred to as the MSP). This is surprising because the MSP prohibits Medicare from making payment when a primary payer should pay but makes only one exception for Medicare to be able to make payments conditionally provided it gets paid back. Therefore, in those 21 years, protecting Medicare’s past interests would seem to have been on the minds of all settling parties on either side of Non Group Health Plan (NGHP) claims – Automobile, Liability (including self-insurance), Workers’ Compensation, or No Fault cases involving Medicare beneficiaries.

With enforcement actions by the U.S. becoming a reality, most parties to settlement have come to learn the importance of identifying conditional payments made by Medicare prior to judgments, settlements, awards or other payments. However, early on, many plaintiffs and their attorneys ignored their obligations to consider and protect both Medicare’s past and future interests, most often without consequences. Regarding Medicare’s past interests, they were hoping to never hear from Medicare again. Regarding Medicare’s future interests, they hoped that Medicare would not deny injured Medicare beneficiaries’ injury related treatment. While there still seems to be some clarification on the horizon coming from CMS with respect to the legal obligations to protect Medicare’s future interests, there is no longer doubt regarding parties’ obligations to address Medicare’s past interests and satisfy conditional payments. However, negotiating the amount that CMS will accept as full payment, often through a process called the Medicare compromise process, may actually help protect the Medicare Trust Funds that the MSP was originally designed to protect[1].

Medicare has two Trust Funds. One for Part A that covers hospital insurance for the aged and disabled and one for both Part B that mainly covers doctors’ visits and Part D that covers prescription medications, for the same population of Medicare enrollees. It was announced in June 2018 that the Part A Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is projected to be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than predicted just a year ago. The Part B and D Trust Fund is not as bad off due to a financing system with yearly resets for premium and general revenue income and is projected to have adequate funding for the next ten years and beyond.

Total Medicare expenditures were reported to be $710 billion in 2017. Medicare expenditures were projected to increase at a faster pace than either aggregate workers’ earnings or the economy, and to increase from approximately 3.7 percent in 2017 to between 6.2 percent and 8.9 percent as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2029, causing substantial strain on our nation’s workers, the economy, Medicare beneficiaries, and the Federal budget.

A 2018 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the two Medicare Trust Funds recommended a legislative response [2] to help protect the Part A Trust Fund. However, instead of waiting years for Congress to act, if parties to third party or workers’ compensation settlements involving Medicare beneficiaries [3], proactively address both past and future interests of Medicare, that could help slow Medicare Trust Fund depletion, in line with the above-described intent of the MSP.

With good reason, many MSP compliance discussions focus on considering and protecting the future interests of Medicare and the allocation and administration tools designed to protect Medicare’s future interests. Equally, if not more important due to the enforcement mechanisms currently in place, parties should address and protect Medicare’s past interests through Medicare lien resolution. Because we know the obligation to address Medicare’s past interests exists, doesn’t it make sense to be proactive and seek opportunities to reduce/compromise the amount CMS will accept to fully resolve reimbursement of its conditional payment demands/Medicare liens? While it might seem that CMS would frown upon compromise requests, doesn’t it make more sense for CMS to encourage an open line of communication with settling parties and grant discounts to those who take the time to comply with the law as opposed to those settling parties that shirk their respective MSP responsibilities and ignore Medicare’s past interests?

CMS held a webinar today regarding an April 2019 upgrade to the Medicare Secondary Payer Recovery Portal (MSPRP) scheduled to allow for electronic payment of conditional payments for all NGHP matters. The portal’s payment functionality should speed up the payment of known non-disputed conditional payment amounts. For parties interested in reducing exposure to high interest rates (close to 10% currently) associated with late payment of conditional payment demands, this new electronic payment functionality of the MSPRP should be welcome news. Ideally, there will be an opportunity to reduce the requested conditional payment amounts by the procurement costs associated with obtaining the settlements. However, Medicare lien resolution often involves more than just reducing the injured party’s conditional payment obligation by the procurement costs. As even better news, the compromise and waiver processes will not be affected by the electronic payments process. Therefore, even when conditional payment/Medicare lien amounts are paid electronically via this new MSPRP process, CMS will still consider compromise or waiver requests, and issue refunds to the party providing payment (or as directed and authorized in writing by the paying party).

[1] The MSP is a series of statutory amendments to the Medicare law from 1965 which in turn amends the Social Security Act of 1935.

[2] Because this is the second consecutive finding that the difference between Medicare’s outlays and its financing sources will exceed 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays within 7 years, a Medicare funding warning was issued, requiring the President to submit proposed legislation to Congress within 15 days after the submission of the Fiscal Year 2020 Budget. Congress would then be required by law to consider the legislation on an expedited basis.

[3] The future interests of Medicare should be considered for any settlement regardless of claim type or Medicare enrollment status because the MSP does not make distinctions regarding Medicare’s payment status as a secondary payer for different claim types or about workload review threshold standards that currently exist in the Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement (WCMSA) Reference Guide published by CMS. Those workload review thresholds allowing review by CMS are triggered for WCMSAs involving Medicare beneficiaries for judgments, settlements, awards, or other payments (“Settlements”) over $25,000, and injured parties with a reasonable expectation of becoming enrolled in Medicare within 30 months of Settlement for Settlements over $250,000. Section 8.1 of the new WCMSA Reference Guide makes it clear that even for WC cases where the workload review thresholds are not met, Medicare’s future interests should be considered via a future care plan (using “plan for future care” to allow the reader to determine the method by which the plan for the future care of the injured party should be prepared – even if not recommending, certainly implying a method such as commonly seen in Medicare Set-Aside allocation reports), or else the settling parties will be placed “at risk for recovery from care related to the WC injury up to the full value of the settlement.” The industry is still waiting for regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations by CMS clarifying this issue for liability cases. This coming fall, there may be further clarification regarding consideration and protection of Medicare’s future interests via new Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the NGHP area, with the hope that any resulting regulations will address comparative/contributory negligence, causation, policy limits, non-economic damages, and other factors unique to liability cases.

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U.S. Supreme Court Fires a Shot at CMS by Overturning the Chevron Deference Case

MSP Enforcement Has Been Focused on Recovery of Conditional Payments up to Date of Settlement

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Requirements for Non-U.S. Citizens

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TAKE AWAYS:

U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Florida’s Medicaid Program Allowing Reimbursement of Paid Medicals from Settlement Funds (Including Funds Intended as Future Medicals)

We previously wrote about this case Will the U.S. Supreme Court Mandate Protection of Medicaid Futures? when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the issue.

Interestingly, Judge Clarence Thomas, pointed out that the parties had not allocated the amount of the settlement designated as future medical expenses.

Take Aways and Food for Thought

As it pertains to resolving liens, is it more likely that state Medicaid agencies and their recovery agents will become more aggressive in pursuing their reimbursement/lien recoveries from any and all portions of settlements?

If it is determined that Medicaid is entitled to at least some portion of the expected accident-related Medicaid futures, how might this affect how Medicare Set-Aside (MSA) allocation reports would be prepared and/or funded when beneficiaries are dual enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid?

For settlements involving injured parties who are duel enrolled, with the complexity of administering funds set aside for protection of Medicare’s future interests heightened, wouldn’t professional administration of those MSA funds seem to be prudent?

Will this decision lead to a higher percentage of liability cases involving Medicaid members going to court for state court allocation determination of the various damages awarded in injury cases?

Will this decision lead to a higher percentage of plaintiff’s counsel petitioning for administrative hearings before the state equivalent of Florida’s Division of Administrative Hearings to resolve difficult and high value liens?

If Florida’s Medicaid agency will be allowed to be reimbursed from funds reserved for future medicals, could it someday request funds to be set aside from settlements to reimburse it for future medicals to be paid by Medicaid after the date of settlement (i.e. a Medicaid Set-Aside)?

Count on Medivest to help you navigate through the complexities of Medicaid liens and questions regarding reimbursement claims and plans for future care out of settlement proceeds.

Take Aways:

Medicare Advantage Plan MSP Private Cause of Action Lawsuit Update

1. MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc. — F.3d —- 2019 WL 1233207 18-11816 (11th Cir. March 18, 2019).

2. MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Infinity Property & Casualty Group, 2019 WL 1238852 (N.D. Al. March 18, 2019).

Take Aways:

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