Medicare Part D Spending on 10 Diabetes Drugs Hit $35.8B in 2023
Medicare Part D spending on 10 diabetes drugs increased 364% between 2019 and 2023.
How the Right AI Can Improve Health Risk Assessments
Healthcare needs a better way to collect information from all sources, organize it, summarize it and present it to providers in a way that lets them deliver the necessary treatment, confident that the material is sound and verifiable.
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Why Your Patients Are Leaving and How to Stop It
Patient expectations continue to evolve, and healthcare practices that fail to adapt risk more than just revenue—they risk losing trust.
4 States Received Enhanced Medicaid Funding During Covid Despite Wrongly Terminating Coverage
New York, Florida, Texas and Minnesota terminated Medicaid coverage for some enrollees for “unallowable or potentially unallowable reasons” during the Covid-19 public health emergency, according to a recent Office of Inspector General report.
Health IT Firms Could Be Fined Up to $1M for Info Blocking Starting 9/1
Beginning September 1, HHS’ Office of the Inspector General will begin enforcing the anti-information blocking regulations laid out in the 21st Century Cures Act. EHR vendors are the entities that are most at risk of being fined — they could face penalties up to $1 million.
OIG: Medicare Part B Spending on Lab Tests Rose 17% in 2021
The 17% increase is the largest jump since OIG began tracking lab spending in 2014. This increase was due to higher volume for three test types: Covid-19 tests, genetic tests and chemistry tests.
OIG: Over 50,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries experienced an opioid overdose in 2021
Over 1 million Medicare beneficiaries had a diagnosis for opioid use disorder in 2021. But despite this high number, only 18% received medication to treat their disorder.
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How to Improve Employee Benefits While Reducing Insurance Costs
Balancing healthcare benefits and insurance costs requires research. From becoming a Difference Card member to offering wellness resources, there are many ways to improve healthcare at low cost.
OIG: MA companies used chart reviews, health risk assessments to boost CMS payments
Overall, MA companies generated an estimated $9.2 billion in risk-adjusted payments for diagnoses listed only on chart reviews and health risk assessments, with the top 20 companies receiving more than half of the payments. OIG is urging CMS to provide more oversight.
OIG: Pandemic forced hospitals into ‘survival mode’
A new report from the HHS' Office of Inspector General lays bare the varied challenges hospitals faced in the past year — and continue to face. These range from challenges in healthcare delivery to staffing shortages to shaky finances.
What providers need to know about OIG’s plans to audit telehealth services
The Office of the Inspector General will audit Medicare Part B telehealth services to detect potential vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. To prepare, providers must first take stock of their programs and conduct audits of their own, experts say.
Report: CMS Administrator spent millions on outside consultants
A Congressional investigation found that outside consultants billed CMS nearly $6 million in less than two years. The expenditures, which included setting up interviews with CMS Administrator Seema Verma, were found by a previous Inspector General audit to violate federal contracting requirements.
A Data-Driven Guide to Patient Access Success
A new report from Relatient, A Data-Driven Guide to Patient Access Succes, highlights how focusing on data accuracy and relevance can enhance the performance of healthcare practices.
Report uncovers patient safety issues with VA’s EHR go-live
Two reports published by the Office of the Inspector General shed light on why the VA pushed back its rollout of a new health record system. The OIG said the March 2020 deployment date was “likely unrealistic.”
OIG report: CMS improperly reimbursed doctors $3.7M in telehealth payments
In a sample of 100 claims from 2014 and 2015, 69 met telehealth service requirements and the other 31 did not, resulting in an estimated $3.7 million in extra costs.
OIG report lists HHS’ top 10 challenges
Curbing the opioid epidemic, improving care for vulnerable populations and keeping HHS data safe from cybersecurity threats are all issues outlined in the 48-page report.
HHS OIG posts video on eClinicalWorks settlement
In a stern warning to eClinicalWorks and the healthcare community at large, HHS OIG published a YouTube video highlighting the need for honesty in the EHR certification process.
Meaningful Use Audits 2.0
New Wave of Meaningful Use Audits Launched by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Most of us have gotten pretty used to the Meaningful Use (MU) audits being conducted by Figliozzi & Company. They are the folks that have been conducting the CMS EHR Incentive audits for both eligible hospitals (EH) and professionals (EP) […]