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September 25, 2007

Public Health Beneficiary Employer Disclosure Law

The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family services (HFS) recently sent letters to all hospital CEOs regarding submission of data as required under the Employer Disclosure Law. This requirement was included in Article 5 of P.A. 94-242 (that enacted the Hospital Assessment Program) in 2005. This reporting provision sunsets on January 1, 2009.

Under this law, hospitals need to report to HFS certain information related to the employer of persons, if known, who receive uncompensated or charity care. The rationale for this provision was that by identifying those employers it may be possible to structure programs or incentives to assist them in providing health coverage to their employees.

The data requested by HFS will be incorporated into an annual report to the General Assembly along with additional information on employers with employees receiving care under Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Attached are the letter (click here) and data submission forms (click here - 3 sheets) sent by HFS with the required information due to HFS by November 1, 2007. A change from last year is the collection of hospitals’ cost to charge ratio from the most recently audited financial statements. The report to be prepared by HFS requires information on the "cost" of care provided to patients. For ease in data collection, hospitals are to report charges for the encounter and HFS will then convert the charges to cost, utilizing the provided cost to charge ratio.

HFS is also required to report information on employed persons covered by Medicaid. To assist in this data gathering, HFS is asking hospitals to voluntarily participate in a submission of data for Medicaid patients for a one-month time period. Hospitals willing to participate in this additional data submission or having questions on the required data submission should contact Dr, Rucinski at 312-355-1769. Dr. Rucinski has contracted with HFS to assist in the report preparation.

If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Kraiss: 630/276-5522 or skraiss@ihastaff.org.