This kind of fraud is straight up evil.
This kind of fraud is straight up evil.
The inspector general's report has 15 recommendations for improving the system. Basically, the report says that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, should analyze more data to ferret out scams and then share that information with hospice inspectors and the public.
However, in a letter to Daniel Levinson, the inspector general at HHS, CMS Administrator Seema Verma, rejected more than half of the report's recommendations.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/31/634075540/hhs-inspector-generals-report-finds-flaws-and-fraud-in-u-s-hospice-care
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/31/634075540/hhs-inspector-generals-report-finds-flaws-and-fraud-in-u-s-hospice-care
The inspector general's report has 15 recommendations for improving the system. Basically, the report says that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, should analyze more data to ferret out scams and then share that information with hospice inspectors and the public.
However, in a letter to Daniel Levinson, the inspector general at HHS, CMS Administrator Seema Verma, rejected more than half of the report's recommendations.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/31/634075540/hhs-inspector-generals-report-finds-flaws-and-fraud-in-u-s-hospice-care
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/31/634075540/hhs-inspector-generals-report-finds-flaws-and-fraud-in-u-s-hospice-care
But, but... Profits! The Free Market! Caveat emptor and alla that.
ReplyDeleteI didn't spend a lot of time looking it up, but some of the CMS objections were things like requiring more physician involvement to alter level of care to inpatient was redundant or something because there's a supervising doctor for hospice. Which isn't at all the same thing, but HHS seems to be trying to get them to compromise on that because appropriate care decisions.
ReplyDeleteThe other one I saw was something about not being able to release data from accrediting bodies to the public. HHS responded something about yeah but there is a lot of publicly available data right now and it's appropriate for CMS to put that in an understandable accessible form for the public. Also, it's news to me that there's some information that isn't either discoverable, so as good as public, or straight up public. I mean, it sure feels like there's no private data on anything in healthcare. What do hospitals, nursing care homes, and hospice providers get to keep private? Also also HHS said the public needs to have all appropriate info to make appropriate decisions for themselves.