The medicaid director shall adopt rules under section 5168.02 of the Revised Code establishing a methodology to pay hospitals that is sufficient to expend all money in the indigent care pool. Under the rules:

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(A) The department of medicaid may classify similar hospitals into groups and allocate funds for distribution within each group.

(B) The department shall establish a method of allocating funds to hospitals, taking into consideration the relative amount of indigent care provided by each hospital or group of hospitals. The amount to be allocated shall be based on any combination of the following indicators of indigent care that the director considers appropriate:

(1) Total costs, volume, or proportion of services to recipients of the medical assistance program, including recipients enrolled in health insuring corporations;

(2) Total costs, volume, or proportion of services to low-income patients in addition to medicaid recipients, which may include recipients of Title V of the “Social Security Act,” 42 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.;

(3) The amount of uncompensated care provided by the hospital or group of hospitals;

(4) Other factors that the director considers to be appropriate indicators of indigent care.

(C) The department shall distribute funds to each hospital or group of hospitals in a manner that first may provide for an additional distribution to individual hospitals that provide a high proportion of indigent care in relation to the total care provided by the hospital or in relation to other hospitals. The department shall establish a formula to distribute the remainder of the funds. The formula shall be consistent with the “Social Security Act,” section 1923, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396r-4, and shall be based on any combination of the indicators of indigent care listed in division (B) of this section that the director considers appropriate.

(D) The department shall distribute funds to each hospital in installments not later than ten working days after the deadline established in rules for each hospital to pay an installment on its assessment under section 5168.06 of the Revised Code. In the case of a governmental hospital that makes intergovernmental transfers, the department shall pay an installment under this section not later than ten working days after the earlier of that deadline or the deadline established in rules for the governmental hospital to pay an installment on its intergovernmental transfer. If the amount in the hospital care assurance program fund created under section 5168.11 of the Revised Code and the portion of the health care – federal fund created under section 5162.50 of the Revised Code that is credited to that fund pursuant to division (B) of section 5168.11 of the Revised Code are insufficient to make the total distributions for which hospitals are eligible to receive in any period, the department shall reduce the amount of each distribution by the percentage by which the amount and portion are insufficient. The department shall distribute to hospitals any amounts not distributed in the period in which they are due as soon as moneys are available in the funds.