Medicare & Medicaid
The Columbus Regional Hospital System in Georgia has agreed to pay the state and federal governments $25 million, and potentially another $10 million, to resolve allegations that it overbilled Medicare and paid kickbacks to a medical director for referrals, according to Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens in a Sept. 4 announcement.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced a plan to reduce disparities in healthcare for Medicare beneficiaries who belong to minority population, live with a disability or who reside in a rural area.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has rolled out a new Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model that will be tested in seven states starting in 2017 as a way to trim costs in the treatment of certain chronic conditions.
Physician Hospitals of America is calling upon Congress to change current federal law to allow new physician-owned hospitals to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, according to the organization's president.
Although many organizations participating in the Medicare Shared Savings and the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization programs failed to generate savings in 2014, Navigant Healthcare consultant Paul Keckley thinks the programs are here to stay despite several flaws.
California legislators passed a bill postponing a controversial plan that would have shifted tens of thousands of medically fragile children into Medi-Cal managed care plans.
Colorado's uninsured rate has plummeted from a recent high of 15.8 percent four years ago to 6.7 percent this year, but the success of the Affordable Care Act in Colorado is almost entirely the result of Medicaid expansion, according to a much anticipated survey from the Colorado Health Institute.
The former medical director of a now-defunct healthcare provider in Miami, along with three therapists formerly employed there, have been convicted for their roles in fraudulently billing Medicare and Florida Medicaid for more than $63 million, according to the Department of Justice.
Amputees against proposed changes to Medicare coverage that would result in less expensive, but inferior, prosthetics being given to patients gathered in Baltimore Wednesday to ask officials to strike down the proposal.
Another Pioneer ACO participant, Beacon Health in Maine, is considering exiting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services program after being hit with millions in penalties two years in a row.