New Medciare bill
Charles Barocas,C.O.
Description
Collection
Title:
New Medciare bill
Creator:
Charles Barocas,C.O.
Date:
3/12/2001
Text:
Bill Aims to Relieve Burden of Medicare Regulations
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WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) Mar 07 - The ability of the Health Care Financing Administration to audit doctors and other healthcare providers and demand back payments from them would be curbed under legislation introduced Wednesday by a bipartisan group of representatives and senators.
The Medicare Education and Regulatory Fairness Act, or MERFA, was introduced by Sens. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and John Kerry, D-Mass., and Reps. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Shelly Berkley, D-Nev. It has the backing of dozens of healthcare groups, including more than 50 physician organizations, led by the American Medical Association.
The vast number of Medicare rules and regulations imposed on healthcare practitioners are bewildering and it's the complaint of every practitioner at every level in the country, said Kerry. We are stifling the ability to provide good medical care in this country.
Specifically, the bill would create new appeals rights for providers who are audited by the agency, and it would delay demanded repayments until after appeals have been heard.
The bill would also limit HCFA's use of extrapolation to increase repayments when a billing error is found. Pennsylvania critical care physician Dr. John Hoyt related how auditors extrapolated from errors found in the records of 29 Medicare beneficiaries and demanded $340,000 within 30 days. Three years after the initial audit, the case has still not been resolved,
Dr. Thomas Reardon, AMA's immediate past president, said, This is similar to the IRS identifying an error on your most recent tax return and making the assumption that you made the same error on every return you ever filed - and then requesting back taxes on each and every return.
Lawmakers said they hoped that passage of the legislation would stem the tide of physicians who are dropping out of the Medicare program because of bureaucratic hassles and low reimbursement. All of us recognize the need to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse, said Kerry. We also have an obligation to ferret out stupidity and abusiveness on the part of the government, he said.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) Mar 07 - The ability of the Health Care Financing Administration to audit doctors and other healthcare providers and demand back payments from them would be curbed under legislation introduced Wednesday by a bipartisan group of representatives and senators.
The Medicare Education and Regulatory Fairness Act, or MERFA, was introduced by Sens. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and John Kerry, D-Mass., and Reps. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Shelly Berkley, D-Nev. It has the backing of dozens of healthcare groups, including more than 50 physician organizations, led by the American Medical Association.
The vast number of Medicare rules and regulations imposed on healthcare practitioners are bewildering and it's the complaint of every practitioner at every level in the country, said Kerry. We are stifling the ability to provide good medical care in this country.
Specifically, the bill would create new appeals rights for providers who are audited by the agency, and it would delay demanded repayments until after appeals have been heard.
The bill would also limit HCFA's use of extrapolation to increase repayments when a billing error is found. Pennsylvania critical care physician Dr. John Hoyt related how auditors extrapolated from errors found in the records of 29 Medicare beneficiaries and demanded $340,000 within 30 days. Three years after the initial audit, the case has still not been resolved,
Dr. Thomas Reardon, AMA's immediate past president, said, This is similar to the IRS identifying an error on your most recent tax return and making the assumption that you made the same error on every return you ever filed - and then requesting back taxes on each and every return.
Lawmakers said they hoped that passage of the legislation would stem the tide of physicians who are dropping out of the Medicare program because of bureaucratic hassles and low reimbursement. All of us recognize the need to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse, said Kerry. We also have an obligation to ferret out stupidity and abusiveness on the part of the government, he said.
Citation
Charles Barocas,C.O., “New Medciare bill,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 2, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/216139.
