Time To Clean House: Clerical "Errors" Cost Medicare Billions
Health-care providers in 24 states will be under the watchful eye of Medicare recovery auditors come October. They’re looking for billing errors that could have resulted in overpayment — or underpayment — of medical claims.
Already the auditors have recovered over $300,000,000 on behalf of taxpayers and the federal government, but that’s just a fraction of the $10.8 billion in estimated errors made in any given year.
“What we have here is bureaucrats and government contractors coming in and trying to second guess what doctors and nurses have done in a hospital setting,” criticizes VP of Policy, Don May, from the American Hospital Association. The health-care community is so incensed by the examination, they have successfully lobbied for a bill to be introduced in the Congress calling for a one-year suspension of activity.
Citizens Against Government Waste spokeswoman Leslie Paige praises the audits. “A little zealotry is what we’re looking for on the part of the taxpayers. We think it’s about time.”
Around 44 million disabled and elderly Americans receive benefits from the government’s health insurance plan, filing over 1.2 billion claims every year.
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