Medicare & Medicaid

Sharon Iglehart, a former attending psychiatrist at Riverside General Hospital in Houston, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in a $158 million Medicare fraud scheme involving false claims for mental health treatment.

Template includes coverage examples that demonstrate cost sharing amounts.

The total 3.05 percent rate is less than the total 3.55 percent CMS proposed in February.

Starting April 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay an estimated 800 hospitals across 67 metro areas bundled payments for inpatient knee and hip surgeries.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will requiring states to provide mental health and substance abuse assistance as they would any other medical services for low-income adults and children.

The policy took effect last year and applies only to Medicare Advantage members, not to the plans CMS oversees in the health law's marketplaces.

Twenty physician organizations and other healthcare groups, including the American Medical Association, have submitted joint comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services praising the agency for some of its changes but say there is room for improvement in a proposed rule regarding Accountable Care Organizations in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

Arguing that too many well-meaning providers are facing financial penalties from meaningful use, the American Hospital Association called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week to offer more flexibility.

Backlogs in processing Medicaid benefits have left thousands of beneficiaries without care, according to the Kansas Health Institute News Service.

Healthy Indiana pushes Medicaid's traditional boundaries, which is why it has the attention of other conservative states. The plan demands something from all enrollees, even those below the poverty line. The poorest Hoosiers can get coverage with vision and even dental benefits, but only if they make small monthly contributions to individual accounts similar to health savings accounts.