New Mexico Hospitals' Under Reimbursement Trends (HURT)

Beginning with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 through to the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 and beyond, there have been numerous changes in Medicare policy affecting hospital reimbursement.  The 1997-2008 Medicare Hospital Under-Reimbursement Trends (HURT) analysis examines the impact of both the legislative policy and the associated regulatory changes on hospitals' Medicare reimbursement rates.

The HURT analysis contains a number of charts and tables, each of which shows the changes in hospital reimbursement over an eleven-year period compared to inflationary cost increases using Medicare's hospital marketbasket index (actual and forecasted) over the same time period.  The information is presented in a statewide format.

Included are two tables - one that graphically shows the cumulative impact of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) consistent problems in projecting the Medicare hospital marketbasket, and the other that describes the major legislative and regulatory changes affecting Medicare inpatient hospital payments from 1998 to the present.