The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
Medicare anti-fraud strategies are getting a serious boost by taking notes from credit card companies.
On the heels of White House initiatives to cut waste, fraud and abuse, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced last week that they’re doing away with their "pay and chase" strategy and opting for a proactive screening process that flags suspicious claims before they are paid.
What to make of Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) CEO Bill Hawkins’ decision to postpone his retirement?
A spokesman for the Fridley, Minn.-based company declined to answer any questions about the search for a new chief executive.
There are some confusing reports out there that appear to suggest that Medicare will now pay for MRI scans for patients with MRI-safe implanted pacemakers.
Uh, not yet. Although the chances for this seem to have just improved.
Republicans are getting attacked at their spring break Town Hall meetings over their plans to privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher program. But they seem to be getting traction with one response, which reflects the political jujitsu contained in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan. Here’s what Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican from Pennsylvania, told the New York Times:
Last week CMS announced that attestation for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (Stage 1 of Meaningful Use) will open on April 18, 2011.
Their announcement includes screenshots of the attestation website that will be used by eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals to document meaningful use of certified EHR technology.
Prior to attestation, all providers must register through CMS’ web-based Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Registration and Attestation System.
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Alleged Biotronik chicanery prompts calls for feds: German cardiac device maker Biotronik is under the spotlight in Nevada after a New York Times probe of a Las Vegas hospital’s allegedly purchased preference for the company’s pacemakers and defibrillators.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services introduced a proposal to change the way hospitals are paid as part of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform law.
The proposal includes guidelines for so-called "accountable care organizations," designed to help rein in unchecked health care costs by restructuring the fee-for-services system hospitals currently use.
A Las Vegas woman was in a California court March 7 to plead guilty to owning a fraudulent medical supply company.
Jummal Joy Ibrahim admitted before Judge George King of the U.S. District Court for Central California to participating in a scheme run by her brother to submit $3.5 million in false claims to Medicare for power wheelchairs.
Dr. Donald Berwick
A group of Republican senators are signalling a new front in their effort to stall healthcare reform: Go after the guy who controls its implementation, Medicare chief Dr. Donald Berwick.
Forty-two GOP senators — two more than the 40 votes needed to veto Berwick’s impending confirmation — sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to withdraw Berwick’s nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
It wasn’t technically Dickensian, but the grilling of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid chief Dr. Donald Berwick on Capitol Hill this morning was certainly the tale of two Michigan congressmen.
Berwick received tough questions from Republican members and mostly plaudits from Democrats as he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee meeting on the impact last year’s landmark Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act will have on Medicare.
What he probably didn’t expect was a lesson in literature from chairman Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.).
