Senate holds hearing on Medicare claims from dead physicians
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, July 15, 2008
The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ subcommittee on investigations held a hearing July 9 regarding fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare program in connection with claims containing physician identification numbers of dead physicians.
CMS Deputy Administrator Herb Kuhn, Social Security Administration’s Office of Systems Deputy Commission William Gray, and Regional Inspector General Robert Vito provided testimony.
From investigations held from 2000 through 2007, the subcommittee estimates Medicare paid approximately $76 million for 478,500 durable medical equipment claims that contained Unique Physician Identification Numbers (UPIN) of deceased physicians. The investigation showed these claims contained the UPINs of between 16,500 and 18,200 deceased physicians, according to a published report from the subcommittee.
In Florida alone, where fraud reports are high, the subcommittee found a number of case studies using UPINs from deceased physicians. In one case, a UPIN was used in 484 claims that were paid six years after the death of that physician.
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