Briefly Noted
Briefly Noted
• Federal investigators said last week that improper Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers fell sharply last year, but still cost the government $12.6 million. Medicare lost about 7 cents of every dollar spent to fraud, waste, and mistakes in 1998, reported the Associated Press. That’s only half of what was lost by the program two years ago. The audit by the Department of Health and Human Services’ (Washington) Office of Inspector General looked at the medical bills submitted to Medicare on behalf of 600 beneficiaries nationwide during the government’s FY98 ended Sept. 30. Of those 5,540 bills, auditors discovered problems with 915. The report showed that home healthcare companies showed the biggest improvement, with overpayments dropping to $800 million from $2.5 billion in FY97.
• Home health aide jobs and others expected to grow the fastest in number are the ones that now pay the least, according to a recent report. The study, called Working Hard, Earning Less, found that 74% of the jobs that are growing fastest pay workers less than a livable wage, which is defined as $32,185 for a family of four. About 46% pay less than half a livable wage, the report said. Some cities in Massachusetts and California have started living wage campaigns. The city council in Northampton, MA, for instance, passed in December a non-binding resolution encouraging businesses to pay their workers a living wage, defined as $7.49 an hour for jobs with health insurance benefits and $9 an hour for positions without it.
• The American Medical Accreditation Program (AMAP), the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) said they will develop a common measurement agenda and integrate measure development efforts in order to promote greater accountability in healthcare. The three organizations, which last year established a coordinating body called the Performance Measurement Coordinating Council, have also appointed a staff director to manage the effort. The council, which met recently for the second time, is charged with making performance measurement more efficient and coherent across all levels of the healthcare system. By working together, the organizations said they will be able to reduce costs and work more efficiently.
• The Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA; Alexandria, VA) said users can find products faster with its new web-style navigation in its latest release of HIDA H.E.L.P., the Healthcare Electronic Library of Products. HIDA has partnered with CIMTEK Medical Company while it has been revamping the electronic resource. The two, said HIDA, have been committed to providing quicker access through Internet technology for H.E.L.P. users.
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