{"id":26846,"date":"2015-11-01T13:02:23","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T18:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26846"},"modified":"2015-11-01T13:02:23","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T18:02:23","slug":"im-sure-there-is-another-side-to-this-story-but-i-havent-heard-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26846","title":{"rendered":"I’m Sure There Is Another Side To This Story, But I Haven’t Heard It"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal<\/a> posted an article about Medicare<\/a> cutting back the work of the auditors<\/a> that oversee the program.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Recovery audit contractors, as they are known, recouped $2.4 billion in improper payments<\/a> in 2014, down from $3.7 billion in 2013 before the agency scaled back other audit activities and temporarily suspended the program for several months, according to a Medicare report.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starting in January, the auditors will be able to review only 0.5% of the claims the agency pays to each hospital or provider every 45 days, according to an Oct. 28 letter to the contractors. That is a quarter of the prior threshold: 2% of claims.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

Those recoveries represent just a fraction of the total amount Medicare estimates it spends on incorrect payments. The Medicare program made $58 billion in improper payments to medical providers and health plans in 2014, according to PaymentAccuracy.gov, a federal website that tracks agencies\u2019 estimates of waste.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Separate contractors and the Justice Department<\/a> separately pursue fraudulent payments from the program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hate to be difficult here, but $58 billion is not pocket change. As federal budget deficits<\/a> increase, we need to look at the places where we are spending money needlessly. Fraudulent claims made to various agencies might be a really good place to start.<\/p>\n

Here is another thing to think about when you consider budget deficits. According to a Huffington Post<\/a> article from 2013:<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Census<\/a> about 57 million, or 1 in 5 Americans<\/a>, live with disabilities, and about 38 million or 1 in 10 has a severe disability. The Social Security disability<\/a> programs provide vital support only to those with the most significant disabilities — about 14 million<\/a> children and working-age adults.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not ready to believe that 1 in 5 Americans is disabled or that 14 million Americans are disabled. That number seems extremely high to me. That might be another thing to look at when examining the budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal posted an article about Medicare cutting back the work of the auditors that oversee the program. The article reports: Recovery audit contractors, as they are known, recouped $2.4 billion in improper payments in 2014, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9501,1381,9505,8401],"class_list":["post-26846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-auditors","tag-medicare","tag-social-security-disability","tag-the-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26849,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions\/26849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}