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Summaries of two reports on the Medicare prescription drug benefit and SCHIP recently released by the Government Accountability Office appear below. * Medicare prescription drug benefit: CMS might have made almost $90 million in questionable payments to contractors hired to help launch the Medicare prescription drug benefit, according to a report released recently by GAO, [...]

A conduct hearing held in Cardiff last week ordered a 36 year-old nurse from Wales be struck off the register for stealing medication from a vulnerable patient. An independent panel of the Nursing & Midwifery Council last week heard that Sarah Louise Cole was working in the Burns & Plastics Unit at Morriston Hopsital in [...]

It is impossible under the current Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reporting process to determine whether a 2006 restructuring of the state’s Medicaid program saved money, according to the state auditor’s office, the AP/Louisville Courier-Journal reports (AP/Louisville Courier-Journal, 12/17). According to a report by state Auditor Crit Luallen, estimates by former Gov. Ernie [...]

The Senate on Tuesday by voice vote approved a “bare-bones” Medicare bill (S 2499) that would delay for six months a 10% physician fee cut and would extend SCHIP through March 2009, CQ Today reports. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the House will take up the measure on Wednesday. The legislation would increase [...]

U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., on Friday granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits HHS from adopting a new method for calculating the average manufacturer price for prescription drugs covered by Medicaid, Dow Jones reports (Wisenberg Brin, Dow Jones, 12/17). The rule would have redefined the AMP for brand-name and generic medications. [...]

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday agreed on a Medicare package that would delay for six months a scheduled 10% reduction in Medicare physician fees, a Republican committee aide said, CQ Today reports. The fee cut is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2008. The [...]

Competition has intensified in the Medicare Advantage open market, according to Mark Farrah Associates (MFA). Based on a comparison of Medicare Advantage Landscape Files released by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and information provided through Medicare Business Online™, MFA has found that 165 companies are vying for members in 2008, up from [...]

Although “[a]dvances in imaging have enhanced every aspect of women’s health care,” Congress “will soon decide whether to cut $20 billion in Medicare funding” for medical imaging services, on top of $13 billion “that has already been slashed” under the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health [...]

House lawmakers will not add a Medicare package to an omnibus spending bill, but they could try to attach it to alternative minimum tax legislation due on the floor this week, aides said, CongressDaily reports. Lawmakers negotiating the package were in discussions late on Monday and must decide on Tuesday if they will attach the [...]

The New York Times, in a Nov. 30 article about Medicare home oxygen therapy, “misses the most salient points in the debate” over the treatment, Peter Kelly, Chair of the Council for Quality Respiratory Care, writes in a Times letter to the editor (Kelly, New York Times, 12/7). In the article, the Times highlighted the [...]