Fred Schulte - KFF Health News
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Federal audits of 37 Medicare Advantage health plans cited 35 for overbilling the government. Many plans, for example, claimed patients with depression or diabetes were sicker than they actually were.
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Privately run Medicare Advantage plans have overcharged the federal government by billions of dollars, yet Medicare hasn't been effective in recouping the excessive payments, an audit found.
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A whistleblower suit against Humana Inc. alleges the insurer turned a blind eye to billing fraud involving Medicare patients. People were diagnosed with more serious ailments than they actually had.
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Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley says the federal government has to "get it right" and pursue full refunds for overpayments to companies that offer Medicare Advantage health insurance.
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Improper payments by Medicare and Medicaid are wasting billions of dollars a year, the White House budget director said. He called for urgent corrective action in a letter that is now public.
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Medicare Advantage health plans are privately run, but reimbursed by Medicare. A Texas lawsuit claims that, to inflate charges, 30 Advantage plans in 15 states exaggerated how sick patients were.
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The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is supposed to figure out which medical treatments work best. But there are sharp political and scientific disagreements over how to do that.
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Internal audits, never before made public, provide striking evidence of billing mistakes in Medicare Advantage health plans. The Center for Public Integrity filed suit to obtain the records.
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Bills to advance or cripple the federal health law in statehouses didn't come to a halt in the months that lawmakers awaited the Supreme Court decision. They may well smolder for months or years.
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Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking the Obama administration pointed questions about what is being done to investigate alleged fraud, waste and abuse by Medicare Advantage plans.