Tag: medicare

AHIP Welcomes CMS Actions to Help Consumers and Employers Make Better Health Care Choices

Posted on December 5, 2011 by AHIP Coverage

A final rule issued by CMS provides enhanced access to secure, privacy-protected Medicare data that can be used to help evaluate the performance of health care providers. Continue reading →

read more...
Posted in: AHIP Press Releases

The Apothecary – The Myth of Medicare’s “Low Administrative Costs”

Posted on July 1, 2011 by AHIP Coverage

The Apothecary blog examines the true administrative costs of the Medicare program. Continue reading →

read more...
Posted in: Fact Check

Bending the Cost Curve – What One Expert Thinks of Fee-for-Service

Posted on June 21, 2011 by AHIP Coverage

Politico looks at the problems with the SGR and traditional fee-for-service model. Continue reading →

read more...
Posted in: Cost Alert, Health Care Costs, Issue Alert

The Baltimore Sun’s Jay Hancock Explores Efforts to Fight Medicare Fraud

Posted on April 5, 2011 by AHIP Coverage

A Baltimore Sun columnist shines the light on efforts to fight Medicare fraud. Continue reading →

read more...
Posted in: In Case You Missed It

Medicare losing $48 billion in fraudulent payments

Posted on March 2, 2011 by AHIP Coverage

Medicare is losing $48 billion per year in fraudulent payments according to a Government Accountability Report released today for a House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee hearing investigating Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Politico Pro reports (subscription required): “CMS estimates that $48 billion of estimated Medicare outlays of $509 billion in fiscal 2010 went to improper payments, including fraudulent ones. ‘However, this improper payment estimate did not include all of the program’s risk since it did not include improper payments in its [...]

read more...
Posted in: In Case You Missed It

New Health Affairs Study Suggests That Private Insurers Control Health Care Spending Better Than Medicare

Posted on December 7, 2010 by AHIP Coverage

Today, the journal Health Affairs released a study from three University of Texas scholars who revisited variations in Medicare payments in McAllen and El Paso first raised by Atul Gawande in 2008. Instead of focusing on just Medicare payments, the three UT scholars had access to one private health insurers’ data to study health care spending variation between McAllen and El Paso. Continue reading →

read more...
Posted in: Health Care Costs, In Case You Missed It

Medicare – Two Big Problems: Higher Administrative Costs and Budget Deficits

Posted on December 8, 2009 by AHIP Coverage

The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle looks at the recent proposal to potentially open up Medicare to people under the age of 65. She points out several problems with this proposal including the two below: “Second problem: administration. One of the reasons for Medicare’s much-vaunted administrative costs is that they don’t need to do the ordinary sorts of customer service things that insurance companies do. They collect premiums by deducting them from your social security check. No one terminates their “policy” unless [...]

read more...
Posted in: Health Care Costs, In Case You Missed It

MEDPAC says Medicare should stop rewarding ‘volume instead of value.’

Posted on June 16, 2009 by AHIP Coverage

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission released its June 2009 Report to the Congress: Improving Incentives in the Medicare Program. MedPAC’s report focuses on how incentives in the Medicare payment systems could be changed strengthen the Medicare program and promote quality care for Medicare beneficiaries.

read more...
Posted in: Health Care Costs, In Case You Missed It