Policy and Legislation

This year alone, prevention and enforcement efforts recovered $3.3 billion from individuals and companies that attempted to defraud federal health programs serving seniors, persons with disabilities or those with low incomes.

In its annual recommendations to Congress on Medicare policies, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommends a 3.25 percent update to inpatient and outpatient hospital payment rates for 2016, as well as repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) methodology for physician services.

Officials say the percentage of people without coverage has dropped by about a third since 2012: from 20.3 percent to 13.2 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

Unless Congress takes action by the end of this month, doctors who treat Medicare patients will see a 21 percent payment cut.

Vague statement by Joint Committee claims lawmakers are working on a replacement, though no details are released.

If Congress doesn’t act, starting on April 1, physicians who accept Medicare would get a 21.2 percent pay cut.

House Republicans refused to advance the bill and invoked a rule requiring a three-fifths majority of House members to vote for the bill to continue to the floor.

Mental health clinics, psychologists and psychiatric hospitals were left out of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Program, and it's cost them.

Lobbyists for the medical device makers handed out nearly $33 million in 2014 to politicians supporting bills to repeal the medical device tax.

Office of the Inspector General report said Medicare could have saved $4.1 billion between 2005 and 2010 if critical access hospitals were being paid for swing-bed skilled nursing services at the same rates as skilled nursing facilities.