Source: 2018-05-16 Clarification of Medicare Payment for Routine Costs in a Clinical Trial (PDF)
Question
If the research sponsor pays for the routine costs provided to an indigent non-Medicare patient (the provider has determined that the patient is indigent due to a valid financial hardship) may Medicare payment be made for Medicare beneficiaries?
Answer
If the routine costs of the clinical trial are not billed to indigent nonMedicare patients because of their inability to pay (but are being billed to all the other patients in the clinical trial who have the financial means to pay even when his/her private insurer denies payment for the routine costs), then a legal obligation to pay exists. Therefore, Medicare payment may be made and the beneficiary (who is not indigent) will be responsible for the applicable Medicare deductible and coinsurance amounts.
As noted in the CMS FAQ Questions on Charges For the Unisured:
“Nothing in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) regulations or Program Instructions prohibit a hospital from waiving collection of charges to any patients, Medicare or non-Medicare, including low-income, uninsured or medically indigent individuals, if it is done as part of the hospital’s indigency policy.
By “indigency policy” we mean a policy developed and utilized by a hospital to determine patients’ financial ability to pay for services.
By “medically indigent,” we mean patients whose health insurance coverage, if any, does not provide full coverage for all of their medical expenses and that their medical expenses, in relationship to their income, would make them indigent if they were forced to pay full charges for their medical expenses.
In addition to CMS’ policy, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) advises that nothing in OIG rules or regulations under the Federal anti-kickback statute prohibits hospitals from waiving collection of charges to uninsured patients of limited means, so long as the waiver is not linked in any manner to the generation of business payable by a Federal health care program – a highly unlikely circumstance.”
Thus, the provider of services should bill the beneficiary for co-payments and deductible, but may waive that payment for beneficiaries who have a valid financial hardship.