Government Watchdogs Attack Medicare Advantage for Denying Care and Overcharging
Congress should crack down on Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that sometimes deny patients vital medical care while overcharging the government billions of dollars every year, government...
View ArticleLawsuit by KHN Prompts Government to Release Medicare Advantage Audits
[UPDATED on Oct. 14] Federal health officials have agreed to make public 90 audits of private Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that are expected to reveal hundreds of millions of dollars in...
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Sick Profit: Investigating Private Equity’s Stealthy Takeover of Health Care...
Two-year-old Zion Gastelum died just days after dentists performed root canals and put crowns on six baby teeth at a clinic affiliated with a private equity firm. His parents sued the Kool Smiles...
View ArticleAudits — Hidden Until Now — Reveal Millions in Medicare Advantage Overcharges
Newly released federal audits reveal widespread overcharges and other errors in payments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors, with some plans overbilling the government more than $1,000 per...
View ArticleHow Medicare Advantage Plans Dodged Auditors and Overcharged Taxpayers by...
In April 2016, government auditors asked a Blue Cross Medicare Advantage health plan in Minnesota to turn over medical records of patients treated by a podiatry practice whose owner had been indicted...
View ArticleDid Your Health Plan Rip Off Medicare?
Today, KHN has released details of 90 previously secret government audits that reveal millions of dollars in overpayments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors. The audits, which cover...
View ArticleGovernment Lets Health Plans That Ripped Off Medicare Keep the Money
Medicare Advantage plans for seniors dodged a major financial bullet Monday as government officials gave them a reprieve for returning hundreds of millions of dollars or more in government...
View ArticleYour Money or Your Life: Patient on $50,000-a-Week Cancer Drug Fears Leaving...
After several rounds of treatment for a rare eye cancer — weekly drug infusions that could cost nearly $50,000 each — Paul Davis learned Medicare had abruptly stopped paying the bills. That left...
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Lose Weight, Gain Huge Debt: NY Provider Has Sued More Than 300 Patients Who...
Seven months after Lahavah Wallace’s weight loss operation, a New York bariatric surgery practice sued her, accusing her of “intentionally” failing to pay nearly $18,000 of her bill. Long Island...
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Thousands Got Exactech Knee or Hip Replacements. Then, Patients Say, the...
Ron Irby expected the artificial knee implanted in his right leg in September 2018 would last two decades — perhaps longer. Yet in just three years, the Optetrak implant manufactured by Exactech in...
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Deep Flaws in FDA Oversight of Medical Devices, and Patient Harm, Exposed in...
Living with diabetes, Carlton “PeeWee” Gautney Jr. relied on a digital device about the size of a deck of playing cards to pump insulin into his bloodstream. The pump, manufactured by device maker...
View ArticleWhistleblower Accuses Aledade, Largest US Independent Primary Care Network,...
A Maryland firm that oversees the nation’s largest independent network of primary care medical practices is facing a whistleblower lawsuit alleging it cheated Medicare out of millions of dollars using...
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Nursing Homes Wield Pandemic Immunity Laws To Duck Wrongful Death Suits
In early 2020, with reports of covid-19 outbreaks making dire headlines, Trever Schapers worried about her father’s safety in a nursing home in Queens. She had delighted in watching her dad, John...
View ArticleFeds Killed Plan To Curb Medicare Advantage Overbilling After Industry...
A decade ago, federal officials drafted a plan to discourage Medicare Advantage health insurers from overcharging the government by billions of dollars — only to abruptly back off amid an “uproar”...
View ArticleThe Medicare Advantage Influence Machine
Federal officials resolved more than a decade ago to crack down on whopping government overpayments to private Medicare Advantage health insurance plans, which were siphoning off billions of tax...
View ArticleFlorida Medical Device Maker Exactech Declares Bankruptcy
Exactech, a Florida device manufacturer that faces more than 2,000 state and federal lawsuits from patients who allege the company sold defective hip and knee implants, filed for bankruptcy protection...
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