State Capitol Briefs
The News Service of Florida
BROWARD HOSPITALS FIGHT AHCA OVER CHILDREN COSTS
The North Broward Hospital District has filed a legal challenge against the state Agency for Health Care Administration about whether counties should have to help pay Medicaid hospitalization costs for children up to age 7. State law requires counties to pick up the tab when Medicaid beneficiaries are in the hospital for more than 10 days, with the counties’ responsibility lasting up to 45 days. But the North Broward Hospital District, which does business as four hospitals, filed a petition Wednesday in the state Division of Administrative Hearings that says AHCA has been improperly requesting payment for hospitalization of children up to 7. The case contends that the state set a policy in the 1990s that allowed counties to avoid paying the costs for those children. It says AHCA sometime after 1997 changed that policy but did not go through a rule-making process, which makes the change invalid.