According to Kass, the circuit court refers to an "exponentially increasing backlog" and that HHS receives "a year's worth of cases every two months or less." The current case decision follows hearings in November 2015 (here).
I pointed out that this was obvious and inevitable two years ago on this blog, and that the then-contemporary government math statements wouldn't make sense, even to a seventh grader.
Quinn's April 2014 blog predicting this, here.
According to Law360, the case is AHA v Burwell, DC Circuit 15-5015. At a previous stage a prior AHA case hit a wall (here).
The opening paragraph of the February 2016 decision:
TATEL, Circuit Judge:
At heart, this case is about an agency caught between two congressionally assigned tasks. Congress has prescribed specific time frames for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to reach decisions on various stages of administrative appeals of Medicare reimbursement claim denials. But Congress has also directed the Secretary to implement the Medicare Recovery Audit Program to detect waste, fraud, and abuse. Although the audit program has recovered billions of dollars in fraudulently or otherwise improperly paid funds, it has also contributed significantly to a volume of appeals that makes compliance with the statutory time frames impossible.
Plaintiffs, including several hospitals with a significant amount of money tied up in the appeals process for far longer than the statute contemplates, seek a writ of mandamus compelling the Secretary to act within those time frames. Although Plaintiffs disclaim any desire or authority to force the Secretary to curtail the audit program or take any other particular action to meet the deadlines, the record suggests that absent further congressional action, the Secretary would likely have to drastically curtail that program to comply with such an order.
The district court concluded that mandamus relief was unwarranted, noting the politicalbranches’ ongoing efforts to resolve this tension and the audit program’s success in detecting improper payments. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we reverse and remand with instructions to the district court to consider the problem as it now stands—worse, not better.