medicaid services

Pharmacy benefits manager Medco will conduct a pilot study funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to assess the value of e-prescribing in economic and clinical terms. The project, which is likely to be closely watched within the industry, will track the South East Michigan E-Prescribing Initiative (SEMI) over the next two years. The initiative will look at the program's impact for employees of General Motors, Ford Motor and DaimlerChrysler. On the healthcare side, BCBS …

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services selected the companies which will be allowed to market their own versions of Medicare Part D. They include: Aetna, Connecticut General, Memberhealth Inc., Pacificare, Silverscript, Unicare, United Health Care Insurance Company and Wellcare Health Plans.The Part D calendar as it stands now: The marketing phase (possibly the ugly part) is set to start October 1st. Enrollment begins Nov. 15. The benefit itself officially goes live Jan. 1st. …

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is preparing to sign off in the next week or so on Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicare Prescription drug plans (MA-PD) developed by health plans around the country. After that, competition is expected to begin in earnest among companies eager to seize their share--and possibly somebody else's--of the billion dollar Medicare Part D market. To prevent abuse, plans have been prohibited from revealing details of their contracts to …

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced this morning that it has released a beta version of the open-source VistA Office EHR. The government plans to eventually distribute the software at steep discounts to small group practices as a way of encouraging doctors to modernize their businesses. The release comes after weeks of delays and speculation that the program might be placed on "indefinite hold." The agency is looking for physicians to participate in the beta test. …

As expected, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced an increase in the premium senior citizens will pay for their health care benefits. The basic premium will rise 13 percent to $88.50 a month. The combined premium, including the prescription drug benefit scheduled to go into effect in January, will average $132 a month.

The seemingly modest $10-a-month increase is in reality a political hot potato. It's drawing attention both to massive variation in Medicare …

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it will cut physician reimbursement rates by 4.3 percent on Monday. CMS said the cuts are necessary because of recent increases in overall Medicare spending. Under US law, payments to physicians and other healthcare providers must be adjusted downward to help control spending as the program's overall costs increase. The announcement had been anticipated by doctors groups, which have warned that many doctors may reduce the number of …

When The New York Times reported last week that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had come up with a plan to distribute the VistA-Office EHR to doctors for free, a lot of people sat up and paid attention. After all, the high price tag for EHR systems has always been a major factor preventing doctors from adopting the technology. Now it turns out that, in this case at least, free doesn't actually mean free. On Wednesday, the department of Health and Human Services …

The New York Times reports that officials at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) routinely double-billed the government for Medicaid services over a period dating back to the early 1990s. The billing problems, which appear to involve questionable charges totaling millions of dollars, were apparently caused when the hospital system issued bills for procedures and visits for which doctors had already charged the government.

Adam Henick, a former …