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Medicare not currently sustainable. Financial analysis shows that what people paid into the federally-funded healthcare system doesn’t come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees, reports the Associated Press.
The federal government’s program encouraging the implementation of electronic health records is about to making incentive payments to doctors and hospitals across the country.
Registration for the Medicare EHR incentive program begins on Jan. 3 as do incentive programs for Medicaid providers in individual states.
The U.S. Senate yesterday approved a measure blocking a scheduled rate cut by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, preserving doctors’ pay and likely forestalling their mass exodus from the federal health insurance program.
Medicare chief next at bat for healthcare overhaul. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid administrator Donald Berwick will make his first appearance before Congress next week. Though the GOP majority hasn’t yet desended on the hill after the party’s midterm victories, he’s likely to have lots of questions to answer about President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform legislation, Bloomberg reports.
Life-saving care at great cost. How did our nation’s most ambitious experiment in universal healthcare — comprehensive Medicare coverage for every kidney failure patient — descend from a “supremely hopeful moment” nearly four decades ago to a $20-billion-a-year “hulking monster” that kills thousands of patients? ProPublica tries to answer those questions in its latest investigative series.
Federal agents charged 44 people in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami in what they’re calling the single largest Medicare fraud scheme ever, according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
The individuals allegedly set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states and stole the identities of doctors and thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, intending to submit phony claims.
Sen. Charles Grassley is at it again.
The Iowa Republican, long concerned with healthcare-related issues including transparency, waste and fraud, sent a strongly-worded letter last week to Dr. Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and his boss Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services. Grassley wants answers on how CMS polices the contractors it uses to process Medicare claims and those charged with finding and eliminating fraud and waste.
The U.S. House passed a bill with bipartisan support yesterday that would give the Dept. of Health and Human Services more power in prosecuting corporations that commit Medicare or Medicaid fraud.
Older Americans enrolled in privately administered Medicare Advantage plans will see their rates drop slightly, thanks to federal negotiators who shot down contracts for high-cost plans.
Predictions that Medicare Advantage rates would rise did not take into account the new authority delegated to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Affordable Care Act, which begins taking effect this week.
