Medicare puzzle: Big rise in artificial feet costs

[avaistheone1]

WASHINGTON (AP) — What's wrong with this picture? Medicare's bill for artificial feet rose nearly 60 percent in recent years, although foot and leg amputations due to diabetes continued a dramatic decline.

Medicare paid $94 million for artificial feet in 2010, according to research conducted for The Associated Press. That was nearly $35 million more than in 2005, even though in 2010, Medicare covered about 1,900 fewer such prostheses.

Artificial feet represent a tiny slice of the $550 billion program that covers health care for 49 million older and disabled people. But the spending spike highlights basic questions about affordability, technology and appropriate care that confront Medicare as lawmakers look for a way out of its broader financial troubles.

http://news.yahoo.com/medicare-puzzle-big-rise-artificial-feet-costs-082844135.html

[rfranklin]

1. Perhaps if they invested some more dollars in catching Medicare fraud and abuse?

Medicare spokesman Brian Cook said officials are concerned.

Medicare "is aware of and shares the concerns this research raises about lower limb prosthetics," he said in a statement. The agency has saved taxpayers $867,000 in the past year by cracking down on fraud involving artificial limbs, Cook added.

There's a lot more out there, with people like Rick Scott committing massive fraud.


Whistleblowers Say Rick Scott Knew About Medicare Fraud

FORT MYERS (2010-6-18) -

Two whistleblowers say the new front-runner in the Republican race for governor is lying when he says he did not know about fraud in his former company, the Columbia/HCA hospital chain.

In July 1997, FBI agents raided Columbia/HCA accounting offices in seven states, including Florida. Within days, Columbia’s board of directors ousted Scott, but gave him a nearly $10 million severance package, including stock shares worth $300 million and a $1 million a year consulting contract.

The company wound up paying more than $1.7 billion for defrauding the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs.

http://www.wusf.usf.edu/news/2010/06/18/whistleblowers_say_rick_scott_knew_about_medicare_fraud

[LiberalEsto]

2. Something is afoot

But there's likely more than one sole cause

[Surya Gayatri]

4. You just couldn't resist, huh?

[babydollhead]

3. My friend Kevin is in Physicians Assistant school

His last experience was holding leg after leg of amputations, In Philly!

[Surya Gayatri]

5. Does this have anything to do

with those severed feet that keep washing up on the Pacific Northwest coast?
SG

[XemaSab]

6. Assuming it's not fraud

Which is cheaper: paying for an artificial foot so a person can work, or paying for disability?

(I know it's an oversimplified question, but if an artificial foot can make someone mobile enough that he or she doesn't have to depend on disability, home health care, food stamps, or any other government programs then it's money well spent.)

[CreekDog]

7. before everyone jumps to wild conclusions --artificial feet have advanced so much

in recent years.

i'm not saying that's the explanation here, but at least consider for a moment that it might be a big part of it.

in the old days artificial feet were crude things, rigid, simple materials.

over the years, they put special materials in them, engineered them to flex, yet be stable, then engineered them to be lighter weight, using advanced materials instead of steel.