Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc.

Shalala
v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc.,
No. 98-1109 (U.S., Feb. 29, 2000)

On Wednesday, February 29, in a 5 to 4 decision, the United
States Supreme Court ruled that an association of
nursing homes could not bypass the administrative review
process to appeal a determination of the Secretary of
HHS that is outlined in the Social Security Act and
directly invoke the federal district court’s
federal-question jurisdiction. (This was the same
provision of the Social Security Act that the federal
district court relied on when it ruled that it did not
have jurisdiction in Ohio Hospital Association v.
Shalala, a decision reversed by the Court of Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit.) The nursing homes sought to
challenge regulations promulgated in 1994 that
“tightened the substantive standards that Medicare
(and Medicaid) imposed upon nursing homes and that
significantly broadened the Secretary’s authority to
impose remedies upon violators.”