HCFA
makes $20 million in payments for procedures allegedly performed
on patients after they died! Two recent reports by the Inspector
General (IG) for the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) has found that out of a one percent sample of all Medicare
claims, the HCFA paid out $20.6 million for Medicare equipment
and/or services to provided to beneficiaries after they had
died. They also discovered that HCFA was also paying HMO's
on behalf of enrollees who've been dead for some time, not
only were they paying for a recently deceased person, but
some files go clear back to 1993.
In several cases, the HHS had in their possession records
containing the death notices of said beneficiaries, but yet
paid out more than $8 million in improper claims for them.
How can this happen you ask? "Like other federal programs,
Medicare does suffer from difficult, complex management problems,"
said Senate Government Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson
(R-TN). "But in this case, Medicare has the ability to
easily match claims with death notices – they just don't
bother to run the match." He continues to say, "Stopping
payments to providers who claim to be providing services to
people who are deceased isn't rocket science, especially when
your own records show they're deceased. These improper payments
- many of them the result of fraud - take health care dollars
away from those who need them." |
