As Cabinet nominee Tom Price faces a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, a newly released trove of documents sheds further light on how he interacted as a congressman with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the massive agency he may soon oversee.
Medical Billing Blog
Tom Price: HHS Pick Favored Drugmakers, Device Makers and Doctors
A recent change in the way Medicare pays for joint replacements is saving millions of dollars annually — and could save billions — without impacting patient care, a new studyhas found. But the man Donald Trump has picked to be the secretary of Health and Human Services has vocally opposed the new mandatory payment program and is likely to revoke it.
HHS Report Details ACA Premium Subsidy Use And Cost
Federal officials on Wednesday released new data about who enrolled in the federal health marketplace plans for 2014, how much the law’s subsidies helped offset the cost and how many plans people from could choose from, among other details.
As has been previously reported, on April 1, 2014, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 was signed into law by President Obama after swift passage by the House and Senate. Language was included in this legislation that prohibited the Secretary of Health and Human Services from mandating use of ICD-10 PRIOR to October 1, 2015.
HHS Committed to More Public Releases of Medicare Data
Department of Health and Human Services announced to a Washington, D.C. forum this month that they are committed to more public releases of Medicare claims data and that they recognize that data transparency is a key aspect of transformation of the health care delivery system.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell nominated as HHS Secretary
HHS Set to Announce New ICD-10 Effective Date
As has been previously reported, on April 1, 2014, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 was enacted, which specified that the Secretary may not adopt ICD-10 prior to October 1, 2015. This left some uncertainty as to what the new date would be exactly.
Under the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program, the Contractors get paid a percentage of the” inappropriate” payments they identify and recover. Some have compared this to a Medicare “bounty hunter” program.
Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act. Sebelius was not pressured to resign, according to major news outlets. She informed Mr. Obama in early March of her decision to resign, a White House official said. "At that time, Secretary Sebelius told the president that she felt confident in the trajectory for enrollment and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and that she believed that once open enrollment ended it would be the right time to transition the department to new leadership," the official said.