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May 16, 2006 Employer Disclosure LawThe 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 (click here). This requirement was included in Article 5 of P.A. 94-242 (that enacted the Hospital Assessment Program), which passed in 2005. The requirements of the Employer Disclosure Law are effective even though the approval of the new Assessment Program is pending. Under this law, hospitals need to report to HFS certain information related to the employer of persons 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. HFS is required to prepare an annual report to the General Assembly that would incorporate the information provided by hospitals. This report would also include additional information on employers with greater than one hundred employees and with twenty-five or more of their employees receiving medical assistance under Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The first annual report to the General Assembly is due by October 1, 2006 and this reporting law will be repealed on January 1, 2009. Hospital Obligation
Requested Data Submission If the hospital has information regarding the employer name of the patient or responsible party, then that employer name should be submitted. It is understood that if the hospital does not have information pertaining to employer name, than that information cannot be supplied and hospitals should report "not available". Hospitals do not need to report any information on number of employees as listed in the law. It is understood by HFS that hospitals would not have access to such data. It is also understood that if the same patient without coverage utilized services multiple times during the reporting period, that information will be included multiple times. For ease in compiling this data, the charges, not costs, associated with the service provided should be included. Hospitals are to submit this data in either Excel format or csv format (comma separated value), whichever the hospital chooses. The first reporting period extends from August 1, 2005 until March 31, 2006. As HB 157 became law on July, 2005, August 1 was seen as the viable start date. March 31, 2006 was chosen as an ending date for the first report, to provide hospitals time between discharge and receiving any final Medicaid eligibility determinations which could affect a patient’s insurance status. The two subsequent annual reports will include a full year of data from April 1 to March 31. Conclusion Attachments |