Benton, IL–Franklin Hospital in Benton is going to have to pay back to Medicare $734,000 because of over payments in part attributed to an increase in patient volume. This was announced during Tuesday night’s Franklin Hospital board meeting. The Southern Illinoisan reports Medicare reconciliation is a complex system forcing hospitals to predict their reimbursements based on prior years costs months ahead of Medicare adjusted rates. By seeing more patients, the less Medicare pays on a per day formula. In the case of this year’s calculation, the hospital waited seven months to file an interim report that was based on the previous year’s rates while also seeing more patients, leading to the over payment. The hospital is currently in the third year of reduced Medicare reimbursements for bad debt settlements at a rate of about 65 cents of each dollar. Officials were told by consultant Dan Linhart that the hospital should increase the frequency of filing interim reports and use software modeling programs that use Medicare formulas to possibly reduce over payments.