u.s. government

Watchdog estimates recent audit of fraudulent Medicaid payments totaling nearly $2 billion ‘is really closer to $60 billion’ A recent audit of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reveals that it directed $2.6 billion worth of taxpayer money … Read More

It appears that Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) forgot to sue Xerox to recover over $133 million that the federal government determined it was owed because of the state’s lack of oversight over Xerox, its then-Medicaid claims administrator, … Read More

UPDATE:  TDMR has received a copy of the ImmediaDent and Samson Partners press statement from Samson Partners vice-president of marketing Stephen Valenti.  It is at the bottom of our story in full. Indiana-based ImmediaDent and DSO Samson Dental Partners of … Read More

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – United States Attorney Russell M. Coleman announced today that ImmediaDent of Indiana, LLC (ImmediaDent), which operates nine dental care practices in Indiana, and Kansas based Samson Dental Partners, LLC (SDP), which provides administrative support services to ImmediaDent, … Read More

Zach Zezulka, a libertarian who lives in Williamson County, last week walked out of the early voting polling place at the Georgetown Parks & Recreation building proud to have cast ballots for candidates who will support President Donald Trump’s agenda. … Read More

Reported in a shocking report released this week, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health found that the Ohio Department of Medicaid made $90.5 million in capitation payments to managed care organizations in the state on … Read More

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General issued a report yesterday that found that managed care organizations are not doing enough to identify Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse.  HHS-OIG undertook the review because it … Read More

In January of last year, Dr. Juan Villarreal’s long-awaited book “Truth Decay: How Government Corruption Caused a Political Scandal Victimizing Texas Dentists and How It Could Happen to You!” was released on Amazon.com.     “Truth Decay” details Dr. Villarreal’s personal struggles … Read More

Recently the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General issued a report A-17-17-52000-  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MET MANY REQUIREMENTS OF THE IMPROPER PAYMENTS INFORMATION ACT OF 2002 BUT DID NOT FULLY COMPLY FOR FISCAL YEAR … Read More

AUSTIN – As lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to discuss the future of the CHIP program, Texas is set to receive $135 million from the federal government to keep benefits in place thru February. CHIP, which stands for Children’s Health Insurance Program, … Read More

The Statesman published a landmark article this morning by reporter Eric Dexheimer regarding the great Texas orthodontic debacle. Story finally pieced together Thanks to the state’s fraud suit against Xerox, its former Medicaid claims administrator summarily terminated back in early … Read More

WASHINGTON – Now that Senate Republicans have failed in their attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare and cut Medicaid, House Republicans are pushing a budget that aims to do all that and then some. Their budget proposal partially privatizes Medicare … Read More

The Senate health care bill (the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017) would fundamentally reform federal Medicaid payment. As Washington Post columnist George Will has written, the bill’s Medicaid provisions, as crafted by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., “makes it this century’s … Read More

Texas policymakers are once again demonstrating their contempt for reproductive health care, the health care providers who offer those services, and the women who rely on them. The state has spent years crippling a once-successful program supporting family planning and … Read More

Texas rejected billions in federal aid to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, calling the program “broken.” But now it’s asking the Trump administration to renew a deal that’s brought the state an additional $6.2 billion a year under … Read More

Hospitals, doctors and nursing homes have one last chance to shape a Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare they say will hurt millions of old, poor and sick Americans — and their own bottom lines. After being on the … Read More

Texas rejected billions in federal aid to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, calling the program “broken.” But now it’s asking the Trump administration to renew a deal that’s brought the state an additional $6.2 billion a year under … Read More

The day after the Senate’s draft health bill was released, supporters looked to defend a key component of the bill: cuts to Medicaid. Republican lawmakers will need to answer to its beneficiaries, who’ve grown dependent on this program for coverage. … Read More

Insurance companies are a powerful voice in virtually any congressional debate over health care. In the case of the Senate health-care bill, some insurers didn’t even wait for the official release before expressing their concerns. This week, the heads of … Read More

WASHINGTON (NBC) – Capitol Hill police arrested 43 disability rights activists who staged a protest outside of Senator Mitch McConnell’s office.  Protestors filled the hallway in the Russell Senate office building. The sit-in was organized by the Arc, which advocates … Read More

Senate Republicans may provide higher federal funding to states with low Medicaid costs in their health care bill. The proposal under consideration gets to the heart of a key sticking point in the ongoing GOP discussions to overhaul the U.S. … Read More

EpiPen has been in the news ever since last year’s outcry over the discovery that its maker, Mylan, hiked the price 550% for the auto-injected emergency allergy treatment. The list price for an EpiPen two-pack is $609. The device and … Read More

President Trump’s recent 2018 budget proposal, which includes roughly $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, has led to howls of outrage from Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that the cuts would “carry … Read More

Wisconsin is preparing to recast its Medicaid program in ways that no state has ever done, requiring low-income adults to undergo drug screening to qualify for health coverage and setting time limits on assistance unless they work or train for … Read More

President Trump has long promised not to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But in his budget released on Tuesday, he proposes making massive cuts to Medicaid. Mr. Trump is proposing to cut $610 billion from Medicaid benefits. This could … Read More

ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) — Before Barack Obama’s health care law, about 17 percent of patients in the King’s Daughters Health System were paid for by the government-run Medicaid program. Today, after the law added 400,000 people to Kentucky’s rolls, Medicaid … Read More

WASHINGTON — Senate negotiators, meeting stiff resistance to the House’s plans to sharply reduce the scope and reach of Medicaid, are discussing a compromise that would maintain the program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act but subject that larger version … Read More

The Trump administration has given states three extra years to carry out plans for helping elderly and disabled people receive Medicaid services without being forced to go into nursing homes. Federal standards requiring states find ways of delivering care to … Read More

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the inspector general for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, resigned last night amid questions from Texas Monthly about his role in getting Iraq removed from President Trump’s ban on travel from Middle Eastern nations. … Read More

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, M.D., called the Medicaid program “broken” and said it needed a stronger focus on fighting fraud and waste during a House subcommittee hearing in late March. Price told lawmakers one of … Read More

WASHINGTON — In a stunning reversal of momentum, Republicans salvaged long-held ambitions to unwind former President Obama’s 2010 health care law, passing a major overhaul in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon. Republicans found legislative success on Thursday … Read More

Many state Medicaid programs are trying to improve their data analytics and provider education to curb fraud and waste within the program — efforts recently criticized in a federal report — one official said this week.Dianne Hasselman, deputy executive director … Read More

Government efforts to fight health-care fraud would get a $70 million boost under the Trump administration’s proposed budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018. The March 16 proposal would provide $751 million in discretionary funding for the Health Care Fraud and … Read More

If you’re poor and you want to keep your health insurance, you may have to go to work. That’s the message from Republican lawmakers who Monday night released a series of changes to their plan to overhaul the Affordable Care … Read More

It’s time to take control of Medicaid before it takes control of us. Unless we act — and there is little evidence that we will — Medicaid increasingly becomes another mechanism by which government skews spending toward the old and … Read More

A new report shows more doctors accepting Medicaid patients in the fourth year of coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives this week slated to vote on the law’s replacement. A little more than half, … Read More

A top Medicaid official is skipping a planned appearance at the South by Southwest festival this weekend after criticizing the GOP plan to repeal Obamacare. Andrey Ostrovsky was scheduled to appear at the music and technology festival on Saturday. However, … Read More

Hours after she was sworn in, the Trump administration’s top official for Medicaid and her boss dispatched a letter to the nation’s governors, urging states to alter the insurance program for the nation’s poor by imposing insurance premiums, charging them … Read More

The Government Accountability Office recently issued a pair of reports within days of one another critical of how the Medicaid program gathers data and screens its provider participants. Medicaid, by far, is the leading source of payment for long-term care … Read More