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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES -------- No. 91-2079 -------- GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITAL, et al., PETITIONERS v. DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit [June 7, 1993] Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. As a means of providing health care to the aged and disabled, Congress enacted the Medicare program in 1965. See Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, 79 Stat. 291, as amended, 42 U. S. C. 1395 et seq. Under the pro- gram, providers of health care services can enter into agreements with the Secretary of Health and Human Services pursuant to which they are reimbursed for certain costs associated with the treatment of Medicare beneficiaries. To operate the program, the Secretary issued regulations imposing limits on the amount of repayment based on a range of factors designed to approx- imate the cost of providing general routine patient service. The question before us is whether the Secretary must afford the six petitioning hospitals an opportunity to establish that they are entitled to reimbursement for costs in excess of such limits. I A A complex statutory and regulatory regime governs reimbursement, rough description of which is necessary background to this case. To begin, Congress has required the Secretary to repay the lesser of the -reasonable cost- or -customary charg[e].- See 42 U. S. C. 1395f(b)(1). Rather than attempt to define -reasonable cost- with precision, Congress empowered the Secretary to issue appropriate regulations setting forth the methods to be used in computing such costs. See 42 U. S. C. 1395x(v)(1)(A). Prior to 1972, the Secretary's regulations contemplated reimbursement of the entirety of a provider's services to Medicare patients unless its costs were found to be -substantially out of line- with those of similar institu- tions. See, e.g., 20 CFR 405.451(c) (1967). In 1972, apparently fueled by concern that providers were passing on inefficient and excessive expenses, see H. R. Rep. No. 92-231, pp. 82-85 (1971); S. Rep. No. 92-1230, pp. 188-189 (1972), Congress amended the statute to specify that -reasonable costs- meant only those -actually incurred, excluding therefrom any part of incurred cost[s] found to be unnecessary in the efficient delivery of needed health services,- 42 U. S. C. 1395x(v)(1)(A), and to authorize the Secretary-as part of the -methods- of determining costs-to establish appropriate cost limits. See 42 U. S. C. 1395x(v)(1)(A). Accordingly, the Secretary promulgated regulations, updated yearly and establishing routine cost limits based on factors such as the type of health care provider (hospi- tals, skilled nursing facility, etc.), type of services it rendered, its geographical location, size, and mix of patients treated. See 20 CFR 405.460 (1975). Hospitals are divided in terms of bed size, and of whether they are urban-i.e., located in a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA)-or rural. As of 1979, the labor-related component of provider costs was to be determined by a wage index keyed to the hospital's location. See, e.g., 46 Fed. Reg. 33637 (1981). The regulations generally provide that reimbursable costs must be within the cost limits. The regulations also allow for adjustments to the limits as applied to a provider's particular claim. A provider classified as a rural hospital can apply for reclassification as an urban one. 42 CFR 413.30(d) (1992). An exemption from the applicable cost limits can be obtained under certain specified situations-e.g., when excess expenses are due to -extraordinary circumstances,- when the provider is the sole hospital in a community, a new provider, or a rural hospital with fewer than fifty beds. 413.30(e). In addition, exceptions are available for, inter alia, -atypical services,- extraordinary circumstances beyond the provider's control, unusual labor costs, or essential commu- nity services. 413.30(f). Two statutory provisions are of central importance to this litigation. First, apparently to protect providers' liquidity, the statute contemplates a system of interim, advance payments during the year. Specifically, the Secretary -shall periodically determine the amount which should be paid . . . and the provider of services shall be paid, at such time or times as the Secretary believes appropriate (but not less often than monthly) . . . the amounts so determined, with necessary adjustments on account of previously made overpayments or underpayments.- 42 U. S. C. 1395(g)(a). These interim payments by definition are only approximate ones, based on the provider's preaudit, estimated costs of anticipated services. See 42 CFR 413.64(e), (f) (1992). Second, the regulations were required to -provide for the making of suitable retroactive corrective adjustments where, for a provider of services for any fiscal period, the aggregate reimbursement produced by the methods of determining costs proves to be either inadequate or excessive.- 42 U. S. C. 1395x(v)(1)(A)(ii) (clause (ii)). B Petitioners are six Nebraska hospitals certified as -providers- of health care services and classified as -rural- for Medicare purposes. Between 1980 and 1984, their costs exceeded the corresponding cost limits. Pursuant to 42 U. S. C. 1395oo, they filed an appeal to the Provider Reimbursement Review Board (PRRB) in which they challenged the validity of the applicable cost limits on two grounds. First, they claimed that the wage index that was used to calculate reasonable cost of labor did not account for the use of part-time employees. Because petitioners used a greater proportion of part-time employ- ees than the national average, this had the effect of artificially lowering their index values. In support of their claim, they pointed to Congress' decision in 1983 ordering the Secretary to conduct a wage index study to consider the distortion due to part-time employment, Medicare and Medicaid Budget Reconciliation Amendments of 1984, Pub. L. 98-369, 2316(a) 98 Stat. 1081, followed by the Secretary's own revision of the wage index in 1986 which accounted for part-time employees, 51 Fed. Reg. 16772 (1986), and to Congress' directive that the revised index be applied to discharges occurring after May 1, 1986. Medicare and Medicaid Budget Reconciliation Amendments of 1985, Pub. L. 99-272, 9103(a), 100 Stat. 156. Second, they asserted that under the cost limits a rural hospital could not show that it incurred the same wage costs as its urban counterparts when in fact its location next to urban hospitals forced it to compete for employees by offering equivalent compensation. Petitioners also com- plained that the cost limits were applied conclusively rather than presumptively. Invoking clause (ii), which provides for -suitable retroactive corrective adjustments,- they argued that they were entitled to reimbursement of all costs they could show to be reasonable, even if they were in excess of the applicable cost limit. Because the PRRB believed that it lacked the authority to award the desired relief, it granted petitioners' request for expedited judicial review. See 42 U. S. C. 1395oo(f)(1). Adhering to the Eighth Circuit's decision in St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center v. Bowen, 816 F. 2d 417 (1987), the District Court ruled for petitioners, holding that clause (ii) compelled the Secretary to reimburse all costs shown to be reasonable, regardless of whether they surpassed the amount calculated under the cost limit schedule. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. Good Samaritan Hospital v. Sullivan, 952 F. 2d 1017 (1991). The court relied on our decision in Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital, 488 U. S. 204 (1988), in which we held that clause (ii) does not permit retroactive rulemaking. 952 F. 2d, at 1023. It reasoned that petitioners' request for adjustments to correct -in- equalities in the system . . . would amount to a retroac- tive change in the methods used to compute costs that, after Georgetown, is invalid.- Id., at 1024. Instead, the Court of Appeals adopted the Secretary's more modest view of clause (ii) as permitting only a -year-end book balancing of the monthly installments- with the amount determined to be -reasonable- under the applicable regulations. Ibid. Under this approach, clause (ii) establishes the mechanism through which the total of the interim payments extended pursuant to 1395g (which merely purport to be estimates of actual costs) are recon- ciled with the postaudit amounts determined at year's end to be owed under the methods determining allowable costs. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. 506 U. S. ___ (1992). II A The starting point in interpreting a statute is its language, for -[i]f the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter.- Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984). See also NLRB v. Food & Commercial Workers, 484 U. S. 112, 123 (1987). Clause (ii) instructs the Secretary to -provide for the making of suitable retroactive corrective adjustments where, for a provider of services for any fiscal period, the aggregate reimbursement produced by the methods of determining costs proves to be either inade- quate or excessive.- Petitioners argue that the mandate is clear: The methods for determining reasonable costs having been determined pursuant to 1395x(v)(1)(A), clause (ii) must be read to mean that such methods nonetheless might yield -inadequate or excessive- amounts in any particular instance. Where such is the case, it is submitted, the clause mandates a correction that will provide full reimbursement for reasonable costs. In contrast, the Secretary asserts that the -aggregate reimbursement- refers to the sum total of the interim payments made pursuant to 1395g. These payments are, of course, based on the methods chosen by the Secretary to determine reasonable costs, but they are only anticipa- tory estimates of what the providers' reimbursable costs will be, made before all relevant data is available. At year's end, when the provider's reimbursable costs for services actually provided during that year are on hand, the pre-audit -aggregate- of the interim payments can be compared to the postaudit amounts due under the meth- ods. Because the interim payments might have been erroneously calculated, their total might not match amounts owed, and adjustments must be performed to reconcile the two. See 42 CFR 413.64(e), (f) (1992). In our view, the language of clause (ii) does not itself clearly settle the issue before us. The clause is ambigu- ous in two respects. First, the -aggregate reimbursement produced by the methods of determining costs- could mean either (in petitioners' view) the amount due given proper application of the Secretary's regulations, or (in the Secretary's) the total of the interim payments, themselves derived from application of the methods to rough, incom- plete data. Second, the clause refers to -inadequate- and -excessive- reimbursements, but without at any point stating the standard against which inadequacy or exces- siveness is to be measured. Petitioners contend that the implicit referent must be the reasonable costs as estab- lished by the providers, without regard to the methods; the Secretary concludes that it must be the reasonable costs as determined by the agency applying the methods. Each of the conflicting constructions is plausible but each has its difficulty. Petitioners contend that although the interim reimbursements might lead to inaccurate repayments, they are not part of the methods of determin- ing costs to which 1395x(v)(1)(A) refers, but rather payment methods governed by 1395g. Moreover, the book-balancing role the Secretary would have us assign to clause (ii) arguably is already performed by 1395g, which mandates periodic reimbursement -prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office . . . with necessary adjustments on account of previously made overpayments or underpayments.- The Secretary counters that, while clause (ii) is directed at year-end adjustments and designed to ensure that providers are reimbursed their reasonable costs, 1395g addresses periodic adjust- ments to be made during the course of the fiscal year; 1395g thus has its own role to play and is not surplus- age. The Secretary also argues that words such as -correc- tive- and -adjustments- more readily evoke the simple mathematical rectifications that she contemplates than the complex process of revisiting applicable methods and comparing the amounts paid with an ill-defined standard of -reasonable- costs that is called for by petitioners' approach. It is true that 1395x(v)(1)(A) defines reason- able cost as -the cost actually incurred, excluding there- from any part of incurred cost found to be unnecessary in the efficient delivery of needed health services,- and petitioners contend that this is the yardstick against which reimbursements must be measured. But the statute proceeds to explain that reasonable cost -shall be determined in accordance with regulations establishing the method or methods to be used.- In similar fashion, the 1972 amendments allow for the provision of -limits on the direct or indirect overall incurred costs or incurred costs of specific items or services or groups of items or services to be recognized as reasonable.- Ibid. (emphasis added). In short, aside from the implementing agency's determina- tion pursuant to its regulations, as to which Congress granted broad discretion, there is no available standard of reasonableness that could form a ready basis for -correct[ion]- or -adjustmen[t].- B Because both the parties and the Court of Appeals are of the view that Georgetown is controlling, we turn our attention for a moment to our decision in that case. In 1983, a District Court struck down the Secretary's 1981 new cost rule for failure to comply with notice and comment requirements. After following proper procedures, the Secretary promulgated the same rule in 1984 and sought to apply the method retroactively for the time it had been held invalid. 488 U. S., at 206-207. Drawing on the authority of clause (ii), the Secretary thus began to recoup -overpayments- claimed to have been made to hospitals as a result of the District Court's decision. The precise question we faced was whether clause (ii) permit- ted such retroactive rulemaking. We held that it did not. As we explained, although clause (ii) -permits some form of retroactive action [it does not] provid[e] authority for retroactive promulgation of cost-limit rules.- Id., at 209. Rather, -clause (ii) directs the Secretary to establish a proce- dure for making case-by-case adjustment to reimburse- ment payments where the regulations prescribing computation methods do not reach the correct result in individual cases. The structure and the language of the statute require the conclusion that the retroac- tivity provision applies only to case-by-case adjudica- tion, not to rulemaking.- Ibid. (footnote omitted). As we further stated, -nothing in clause (ii) suggests that it permits changes in the methods used to compute costs; rather, it expressly contemplates corrective adjustments to the aggregate amounts or reimbursement produced pursuant to those methods.- Id., at 211 (emphasis in original). But while Georgetown eliminated across-the-board, retroactive rulemaking from the scope of clause (ii), it did not foreclose either of the two interpretations urged in this case: case-by-case adjustments based on a comparison of interim payments with -reasonable- costs as determined by the Secretary; and case-by-case adjustments based on a comparison of amounts due under the regulations with -reasonable- costs as demonstrated by the provider. Cf. id., at 209, n. 1. III A Confronted with an ambiguous statutory provision, we generally will defer to a permissible interpretation es- poused by the agency entrusted with its implementation. See National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S. --, -- (1992) (slip op., at ___) Depart- ment of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA, 494 U. S. 922, 933 (1990); K mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U. S. 281, 291-292 (1988). Of particular relevance is the agency's contempo- raneous construction which -we have allowed . . . to carry the day against doubts that might exist from a reading of the bare words of a statute.- FHA v. The Darlington, Inc., 358 U. S. 84, 90 (1958). See also Aluminum Co. of America v. Central Lincoln Peoples' Utility Dist., 467 U. S. 380, 390 (1984). In this case, the regulatory framework put in place by the agency in furtherance of the Medicare program supports the book-balancing approach to clause (ii). Nowhere in the regulations was there mention of a mechanism for implementing the kind of substantive recalculation and deviation from approved methods sug- gested by petitioners. On the other hand, the regulations provided on more than one occasion for the year-end book balancing adjustment that, in the Secretary's opinion, is mandated by clause (ii). For instance, 20 CFR 405.451(b)(1) (1967) stated: -These regulations also provide for the making of suitable retroactive adjustments after the provider has submitted fiscal and statistical reports. The retroac- tive adjustment will represent the difference between the amount received by the provider during the year . . . and the amount determined in accordance with an accepted method of cost apportionment to be the actual cost of services rendered to beneficiaries during the year.- Use of the words -suitable retroactive adjustment,- bor- rowed from clause (ii), demonstrates the agency's under- standing. As we wrote in Georgetown, -[i]t is clear from the language of these provisions that they are intended to implement the Secretary's authority under clause (ii).- 488 U. S., at 211, n. 2 (emphasis added). What is more, -[t]hese are the only regulations that expressly contem- plate the making of retroactive corrective adjustments.- Id., at 212 (emphasis added). From the outset, then, the agency viewed clause (ii) as a directive for retroactive adjustment of payments for allowable costs, as determined by the methods. In the aftermath of the 1972 amendments adding the cost limit provision, the agency appears to have ascribed the same role to clause (ii), namely to retroactively correct the difference between interim payments and reasonable costs-only, as a result of the amendments, the adjust- ment would now be based on the new definition of reason- able costs, which includes the cost limits that as a general rule were not to be exceeded. As previously described, however, the regulations promulgated by the Secretary permitted various exceptions, exemptions, and adjustments to the limits. See 20 CFR 405.460(f) (1975); supra, at -. A provider could obtain a reclassification -on the basis of evidence that [its] classification is at variance with the criteria specified in promulgating limits.- 20 CFR 405.460(f)(1) (1975). Exemptions for sole community hos- pitals have expanded to include new providers, rural hos- pitals with less than 50 beds; exceptions now extend to atypical services, circumstances such as strikes or floods, educational services, essential community services, unusual labor costs. See 42 CFR 413.30 (1992). The agency's development-and continued augmentation-of a list of sit- uations in which the cost limits would be waived is diffi- cult to harmonize with an interpretation of clause (ii) that would give a provider the right to contest the application of any particular and statutorily authorized method to its own circumstances. Rather, it is consistent with a view that the cost limits by definition entailed generalizations that would benefit some providers while harming others, and with a desire to refine these approximations through the Secretary's creation of exceptions and exemptions. B Petitioners argue that any deference to the agency's current position is unwarranted in light of its shifting views on the matter. It is true that over the years the agency has embraced a variety of approaches. Compare, e.g., Regents of Univ. of California v. Heckler, 771 F. 2d 1182 (CA9 1985) (agency contends that clause (ii) permits only book-balancing); Whitecliff v. United States, 210 Ct. Cl. 53, 536 F. 2d 347 (1976) (same), with Georgetown, supra (agency argues that clause (ii) allows retroactive rulemaking). In response, the Secretary attributes such inconsistency to the lower courts' erroneous interpretations of clause (ii). If providers could obtain substantive retroactive adjustments in the event of alleged underpay- ment, the argument goes, then so, in the face of alleged underpayment, would the agency. However, in the aftermath of Georgetown, she notes that the agency returned to its earlier position. The Secretary is not estopped from changing a view she believes to have been grounded upon a mistaken legal interpretation. See Automobile Club of Michigan v. Commissioner, 353 U. S. 180, 180-183 (1957). Indeed, -[a]n administrative agency is not disqualified from changing its mind; and when it does, the courts still sit in review of the administrative decision and should not approach the statutory construction issue de novo and without regard to the administrative understanding of the statutes.- NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 351 (1978). See also NLRB v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U. S. 775, 787 (1990); NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U. S. 251, 265-266 (1975). On the other hand, the consistency of an agency's position is a factor in assessing the weight that position is due. As we have stated, -[a]n agency interpretation of a relevant provision which conflicts with the agency's earlier interpretation is `entitled to considerably less deference' than a consistently held agency view.- INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 446, n. 30 (1987) (quoting Watt v. Alaska, 451 U. S. 259, 273 (1981)). How much weight should be given to the agency's views in such a situation, and in particular where its shifts might have resulted from intervening and possibly erroneous judicial decisions and its current position from one of our own rulings will depend on the facts of individual cases. Cf. FEC v. Democratic Senator- ial Campaign Committee, 454 U. S. 27, 37 (1981). C In the circumstances of this case, where the agency's interpretation of a statute is at least as plausible as competing ones, there is little, if any, reason not to defer to its construction. We should be especially reluctant to reject the agency's current view which, as we see it, so closely fits -the design of the statute as a whole and . . . its object and policy.- Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 158 (1990). Section 1395 explicitly delegates to the Secretary the authority to develop regulatory methods for the estimation of reasonable costs. See 42 U. S. C. 1395x(v)(1)(A). To be sure, by virtue of their being generalizations, they necessarily will fail to yield exact numbers-to the detri- ment of health care providers at times, to their benefit at others. Presumably, the methods could use a more exact mode of calculating depreciation, cf. Daughters of Miriam Center for the Aged v. Mathews, 590 F. 2d 1250 (CA3 1978), account for proximity to a college or univer- sity because it can distort the wage index, cf. Austin, Texas, Brackenridge Hospital v. Heckler, 753 F. 2d 1307, 1316 (CA5 1985), or to a high-crime zone in which height- ened, and expensive, security is called for. All of these variables, and many others, affect actual costs; factoring them in the methods undoubtedly would improve their accuracy. But -[w]here, as here, the statute expressly entrusts the Secretary with the responsibility for imple- menting a provision by regulation, our review is limited to determining whether the regulations promulgated exceeded the Secretary's statutory authority and whether they are arbitrary and capricious.- Heckler v. Campbell, 461 U. S. 458, 466 (1983) (footnote and citations omitted). Besides being textually defensible, the Secretary's restrictive reading of clause (ii) comports with this broad delegation of authority. Congress saw fit to empower the agency to devise methods to estimate actual costs, and the agency has opted for the use of certain generalizations, with additional fine-tuning by way of exceptions, exemp- tions, reclassifications, and by making allowances for possible variations in costs consistent with efficiency. See n. _, supra. What the agency forbids is the kind of wide range, ad hoc reassessments of the accuracy of the chosen methods implicit in petitioners' interpretation. Indeed, and for all practical purposes, petitioners' conten- tion is that the methods chosen by the agency did not take into account sufficient variables, namely the propor- tion of part-time workers and proximity to urban centers. It is, in all but name, a challenge to the validity of the methods-albeit in an individual case-including the cost limits, the exceptions and the exemptions, and to their adequacy as gauges of reasonable costs. The Secretary has construed the statute to allow such attacks, not via clause (ii), but rather, in keeping with the broad authority with which she is possessed, by way of the arbitrary and capricious provision of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. 706. IV The issue is not without its difficulties whichever way we turn. Though not the sole permissible one, the agency's interpretation of clause (ii), manifested in regula- tions promulgated soon after enactment and expressed today, -give[s] reasonable content to the statute's textual ambiguities.- Department of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA, 494 U. S., at 933. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed.