On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of HHS in a case regarding how the agency calculates disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from California, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia.
- California: S Martinelli & Company has recalled more than 170,000 bottles of its apple juice due to potential contamination with patulin, a naturally occurring mycotoxin. According to the World Health Organization, patulin can be produced by different kinds of molds that grow on grains or fruit and can carry over into apple products. Pasteurization cannot remove patulin from a product. Some symptoms of patulin exposure include nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, and vomiting. FDA has classified the recall as "Class II," which means that using the recalled product "may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences," even if "the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote." The recalled products were distributed to 28 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. (Bartiromo, The Hill, 4/25)
- Connecticut: Last month, Yale New Haven Health reported that it experienced a data breach that exposed the information of 5.6 million patients, making it the largest healthcare breach so far this year. In a press release, Yale New Haven said it detected unusual activity in its IT systems in March and found that an unauthorized third party had accessed its network and stolen copies of some patient data. The information exposed in the breach included demographic data, Social Security numbers, patient type, and medical record numbers. However, the health system said its EHR was not accessed, and neither financial details nor employee HR information were compromised. Stolen patient data is "a valuable commodity on the dark web," said Barry Mathis, managing principal of IT advisory consulting at PYA. "And as long as they're making billions of dollars in that space, then they're always going to be attacking." (Olsen, Healthcare Dive, 4/24)
- District of Columbia: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of HHS in a case regarding how the agency calculated DSH payments for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. In the case, hospitals argued that all patients enrolled in the SSI system at the time of their hospitalizations should be included in the DSH payment calculations even if they were not entitled to a payment in that month. However, HHS considers only those eligible for a payment during the month of their hospitalization as low income in its calculation. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with HHS, upholding lower court rulings. Previously, the Supreme Court also sided with HHS in a similar case involving DSH payments in 2022. In response to the ruling, Beth Feldpush, SVP of policy and advocacy at America's Essential Hospitals, said the organization was "disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision to allow HHS to undercount the patients for whom essential hospitals receive DSH payments" and that it would "continue to advocate for adequate payment to support our nation's essential hospitals." (Gliadkovskaya, Fierce Healthcare, 4/29; Cass, Becker's Hospital Review, 4/29)
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