Tag: GAO report

WASHINGTON – CMS needs to address risks posed by provider enrollment waivers and flexibilities that have been in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government Accountability Office says in a new report. The GAO analyzed 47 waivers and flexibilities, such as waivers of about 7,300 fingerprint-based background checks for types of providers posing a high risk of fraud, waste and abuse, and found that Medicare took some steps to oversee providers but fell behind in others. In all, the GAO...

WASHINGTON - The Office of Inspector General (OIG) says it will use Medicare claims data to review the impact of competitive bidding on beneficiary access to DME, but industry stakeholders don't want the agency to stop there.“If our industry is allowed to provide the information that we have been collecting for fair judgment, we are hopeful that the OIG would come to the same conclusion that the bid program has negative impacts on beneficiaries,” said Kelly Turner, director of advocacy...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., pressed Kathleen King, director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to explain CMS's conclusion that the competitive bidding program has had no negative impact on beneficiaries during an April 30 Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing on waste, fraud and abuse. The GAO released a report on the program April 18 that drew its conclusions largely on information provided by CMS. During his questioning, Price learned that CMS had not conducted clinical...

On Saturday, I cracked open a window, cleaned out my car and stowed my winter boots in the closet. This morning, I donned mittens while I chipped snow and ice off of my car (in Maine, we keep the ice scrapers at hand year round). Ahh … spring. Last week, the industry got whacked with its own wet blanket: Two reports issued by the OIG and the GAO on the competitive bidding program. The first found that CMS generally complied with its own bidding rules and said that CMS should continue to follow its...