Policy and Legislation
Roughly $48 billion of Medicare's $507 billion budget in 2010 went to fraudulent or improper payments, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
Inpatient acute care hospital billing staff need to make sure medical documentation submitted demonstrates evidence of the clinical need for patients to be admitted and that it fully and accurately identifies any subsequent care provided during that stay.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has released a report showing that the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, created by the Affordable Care Act, is reducing healthcare costs for early retirees.
An opinion piece published in February's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine calls for the creation of a national health policy curriculum for medical schools.
Conservatives are in a full court press these days telling us the answer to America’s out-of-control health care costs—and our fiscal crisis—is to move Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax code subsidy for private insurance to a defined contribution system.
More than 1,000 registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente's Los Angeles Medical Center are going on strike Wednesday - the first nursing strike at the Sunset Boulevard facility in 20 years.
The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the United Regional Health Care System of Wichita Falls, Tex., that prohibits it from entering into contracts that prevent commercial health insurers from contracting with the system's competitors.
The Alabama State Supreme Court has upheld a 2009 ruling that Richard Scrushy, founder and former CEO of HealthSouth, must pay $2.8 billion to shareholders over accusations of fraud.
The ongoing debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is about more than whether this provision or that provision is beneficial or damaging to the nation’s economy and health care system. The debate is also about the appropriate role of the federal government compared to that of state governments and individuals.
CMS has apparently determined that facilities with DRG payments in excess of $100 million during the last fiscal year have the ability to address a larger number of RAC additional documentation requests.