White House plans to “Aggressively Attack” Billing Errors
Officials made nearly $70 billion in improper payments to Medicare Advantage plans from 2008 through 2013 according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.
As a result, White House budget director Shaun Donovan called for a "more aggressive strategy" to put a stop to “improper government payments” to doctors, hospitals and insurance companies.
This was stated in a secret letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell earlier this year. (This letter was finally released to the Center for Public Integrity earlier this week through a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.)
-
"We believe a more aggressive strategy can be implemented to reduce the level of improper payments."•
-
"We must continue to explore new and innovative ways to address the problem and attack this…with every tool at our disposal.”
- Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage were cited with problems.
-
Payment errors rose by $3.1 billion last year in Medicaid
- HHS has been instructed to draw up a plan for getting payments correct under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to develop a "comprehensive corrective action plan".
-
The ACA, after adding millions of people to insurance rolls, is scheduled to have payment-accuracy audits starting this fiscal year.
The White House will consider payments to be improper when they are:
-
"Made to the wrong entity”
-
“In the wrong amount”
-
“For the wrong reason”
Outsourcing your billing can be an effective way to answer these concerns. Medical Recovery Services’ team of expert and experienced billers take the anxiety out of medical billing, combining accuracy with speed so you get paid faster.
For more information, contact Medical Recovery Services
(816) 229-4887
Medical Recovery Services is a full-service revenue cycle company assisting
hospitals and surgical centers in achieving their full earning potential since 2004.