Hospitals charged Medicare

Hospitals charged Medicare for the "reasonable costs" of treating patients, and doctors were reimbursed for their "reasonableugg boots and customary" fees. According to Joseph Califano, a former Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) secretary, federal adoption of the cost-based, fee-for-service reimbursement system became a blank check for American hospitals and doctors. The rate of increase in hospital spending, which had averaged 8.8 percent between 1960 and 1965, almost doubled, approaching an average annual increase of 15 percent from 1965 to 1970.(8) Medicare's benefit structure favored the same kind of first-dollar, acute-care coverage as private insurance. Under Part A, patients were charged a small deductible but paid nothing else for a sixty-day hospital stay. After sixty days, Medicareed hardy wristbands paid a decreasing amount, saddling seriously ill patients with catastrophic costs. The medical care provided to beneficiaries under Medicare and Medicaid was either free or greatly subsidized, and premiums were nonexistent or unrelated to individual or group usage. Consequently, beneficiaries had no incentive to question costs and every motivation to demand more services. In response to White House pressure to get the plan off to a running start, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfareed hardy men apparel wrote regulations regarding reimbursement that were extremely beneficial to the medical industry. Not only did doctors get the power to charge "reasonable" and "customary" fees, they also received significant control over how Medicare would set such fees. Hospitals were successful in getting the interest on current and capital debt included in reimbursement costs, and they pressured HEW to pay for depreciation on buildings and equipment that had been ed hardy women hoody
purchased with federal funds under the Hill-Burton Act. In addition, government officials agreed to give them a 2 percent add-on to their actual costs for treating Medicare patients. According to Joseph Califano, "the 2 percent was a bribe to get the hospital industry to cooperate with Medicare." the article is from:https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1094/is_n2_v28/ai_13834930/pg_4/?tag=content;col1