Fred Schulte - Kaiser Health News

"It's hard to know whether they're advocating for their business interests or for the seniors that they are supposed to represent,” says the director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group.

Prosecutors say two executives with SpineFrontier are accused of paying millions of dollars in bribes disguised as consulting fees to surgeons in exchange for the surgeons using the manufacturer's products.

As the Trump administration calls for expanding access to Medicare Advantage, a federal whistleblower lawsuit accuses a large Medicare Advantage plan of bilking Medicare out of $8 million.

A lawsuit filed by Kaiser Health News under the Freedom of Information Act could spur the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to release audits that document up to $650 million in overcharges.

A federal audit and a whistleblower lawsuit allege that Medicare Advantage plans from the St. Louis-based Essence Group Holdings Corp. have significantly overcharged taxpayers.

The federal government wants to deploy several new tools for catching insurers that have overcharged Medicare $30 billion in the past three years alone. But the insurance industry is balking.

The government used a 2009 financial stimulus package to move the country from paper medical charts to electronic records. Care was supposed to get better, safer and cheaper. It hasn't worked out.

Elizabeth Moreno got hit with a $17,850 bill from a Texas lab after leaving a urine sample at her doctor's office. The lab had tested the sample for a wide range of legal and illicit drugs.

A few months after surgery for a painful spinal disk, a woman's doctor asked her for a sample of urine during a follow-up visit. The routine request turned into a financial nightmare.

Medicare Advantage plans say they offer good value and aim to keep patients healthy, but sicker people are far more likely than others to drop out because of lack of access to specific doctors.