Medicare Faces Barrage of Hospital Pay Cases After Chevron’s End

Hospitals are seizing on the US Supreme Court’s scrapping of agency deference to sue over Medicare reimbursement policies, seeking to resolve years-long payment disputes they claim have cost them billions of dollars.

Hundreds of hospitals have banded together in dozens of lawsuits since the Supreme Court’s June decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned the principle of deferring to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of unclear federal laws outlined in the court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

The suits contest a range of issues—from the structure of hospital reimbursement formulas to compensation ...