“There are unscrupulous providers out there, and they have much greater reach with telehealth,” said Mike Cohen, an operations officer with the Health and Human Services Inspector General’s Office.
Pneumonia. Heart problems. High cholesterol. Betsy Carrier, 71, and her husband, Don Resnikoff, 79, relied on their primary care doctor in Montgomery County, Maryland, for help managing their ailments.
As states relax coronavirus restrictions, older adults are advised, in most cases, to keep sheltering in place. But for some, the burden of isolation and uncertainty is becoming hard to bear.
In one of his first proposals since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden is wading back into the roiling waters of health policy.
Federal health officials, citing a need to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, have temporarily halted some efforts to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in overpayments made to Medicare Advantage health plans.
The decision came out of the blue. “Your husband isn’t going to get any better, so we can’t continue services,” an occupational therapist told Deloise “Del” Holloway in early November. “Medicare isn’t going to pay for it.”
Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, sat down for a rare one-on-one interview with Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Sarah Varney.
At the January Democratic debate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders zeroed in on the question of profits in the health care industry.
Under “Medicare for All,” he said, “we end the $100 billion a year that the health care industry makes.”
Any day now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans could rule the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.
Saturday is the deadline for most people with Medicare coverage to sign up for private drug and medical plans for next year.
