GAO: Medicare doctors, suppliers owe back taxes
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, March 27, 2007
A new report out of the Government Accountability Office says the federal government has failed to collect more than $1 billion in back taxes owed by Medicare doctors and suppliers, the Washington Post reports.
More than half of the unpaid bills stem from payroll taxes which were collected from workers but never sent to the IRS, the GAO said. Instead, some medical providers spent the payroll tax money on luxury purchases.
To date, the money hasn't been collected because HHS has yet to connect its infrastructure with the IRS. Once the connection is made, it will be much easier to deduct money from Medicare payments to those who owe, the GAO authors noted.
Medicare already withheld $339 million in payments during 2006 from providers and suppliers known to owe the IRS back taxes.
Read the Post report here.
Related Products
-
Strategies for Health Care Compliance
News and real-life examples to increase the effectiveness of your compliance program. Strategies for Health Care Compliance...
-
Compliance Monitor
This HTML e-mail newsletter delivers news on Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse, as well as recent documents and targets...
-
Medicare Weekly Update
Each issue of Medicare Weekly Update includes the latest CMS proposed and final rules, CMS manual revisions, and...
-
Medicare Update for Physician Services
Medicare Update for Physician Services is a free, monthly e-zine that delivers news and information to help physician...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Identify potential Medicaid RAC target areas
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- E-mailed
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- CMS has reformulated payments for some bilateral procedures
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Q&A: Follow CMS' coding guidelines when using modifier -25
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q/A. One injection code or two?
- Do not code 57288 with 52000
- Searched