Medicaid DSH Payments Cover Majority of Uncompensated Care Costs

The report comes as the payments are scheduled to shrink in fiscal year 2020 and policymakers look for ways to curb healthcare spending.

The supplemental funding that Medicaid provides in the form of disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments covered 51% of uncompensated care costs in 2014 at the hospitals that received the payments, according to a study released publicly Monday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The report comes as Medicaid DSH payments are scheduled to decrease in size in fiscal year 2020 and as lawmakers on Capitol Hill debate how they might tweak the program to rein in spending.

"I hope this report can convince my colleagues in Congress that reforms in this program are badly needed," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R–Iowa, said in a statement saying Medicaid's supplemental payments are "complex to the point of inefficient."

In 2017, Medicaid DSH payments totaled more than $18 billion.