The business of waste — specifically, the business of off-site management of hazardous and non-hazardous medical waste — is big.
A pair of Congressional subcommittees focused on oversight have banded together to examine ways to reduce Medicaid fraud and waste.
Previous controls have not done enough to reduce fraud and waste in connection to chiropractic care for Medicare patients, according to a review issued by a federal watchdog Friday.
Although long-term care organizations successfully distribute drugs to patients every day, their processes for getting rid of the waste associated with those medications may sometimes fall short, exposing an organization to risk.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should move faster to make changes based on Medicare audits and should have more direct oversight over Medicaid, according to bipartisan legislation introduced Tuesday. “The Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures Act of 2013” proposes a variety of reforms to cut down on waste, fraud and abuse. The PRIME Act was introduced by Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Reps. John Carney (D-DE) and Peter Roskam (R-IL).
On the heels of his departure from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, M.D., said he came to Washington with an agenda to eliminate waste from the system.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced late Friday new rules aimed at stopping improper Medicaid payments to providers. Taking a page from the Medicare program, regulators have proposed using Medicaid Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs).
Healthcare analysts at the Department of Health and Human Services are re-evaluating Medicare’s “ultra-high” billing category for therapy services in skilled nursing facilities as a potential way to reduce wasteful spending, according to a Washington Post report.
There is more and more talk in state legislatures of finding new ways to dispose of unused medications at healthcare facilities. This is an idea whose time has come.
