Govt: Medicare paid $47 billion in suspect claims

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.

Excerpts of a new federal report, obtained by The Associated Press, show a dramatic increase in improper payments in the $440 billion Medicare program that has been cited by government auditors as a high risk for fraud and waste for 20 years.

It's not clear whether Medicare fraud is actually worsening. Much of the increase in the last year is attributed to a change in the Health and Human Services Department's methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements and includes more improper payments -- part of a data-collection effort being ordered government-wide by President Barack Obama this coming week to promote "honest budgeting" and accurate statistics.

Still, the fiscal 2009 financial report -- covering the first few months of the Obama administration -- highlights the challenges ahead for a government that is seeking in part to pay for its proposed health care overhaul by cracking down on Medicare fraud. While noting that several new anti-fraud efforts were beginning, the government report makes clear that "aggressive actions" to date aimed at reducing improper payments had yielded little improvement.

In recent years, the suspect claims have included Medicare prescriptions from doctors who were dead, and requests for payment for medical supplies such as blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and diabetic shoes for leg amputees. Patients, many of them new citizens who barely speak English, are sometimes recruited by brokers who go door-to-door offering hundreds of dollars for use of their Medicare numbers.

Obama is expected to announce new initiatives this coming week to help crack down on Medicare fraud, including a government-wide Web site aimed at providing a fuller account of health care spending and improper payments made by various agencies. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also will launch a Web interactive next month that will allow users to track Medicare payment information by categories such as state, diagnosis and hospital.

According to the report, the Bush administration from 2005-2008 reported improper payments of roughly 4 percent in the fee for service program, or about $17 billion total in 2008. Government officials at the time, however, typically did not consider a Medicare payment improper if the medical documentation was incomplete or a doctor's signature was illegible. Since these were flaws that ordinarily bar payment, that methodology drew complaints from government auditors that the figures were understated.

For fiscal year 2009, the Obama administration began counting those claims as improper, but was unable to complete an official tally based on the new methodology. As a result, it officially reported improper payments for its fee for service program at 7.8 percent, representing a partial tally under the new formula. But it considers the unofficial tally of 12.4 percent to be more representative.

Beginning next year, the 12.4 percent figure -- or a total of $47 billion in improper payments when counting both Medicare fee for service and managed care -- will be used as the baseline estimate. The federal report sets a target of reducing improper payments in the fee for service program to 9.5 percent by next year, which would represent a savings of roughly $9.7 billion.

The findings come as the Obama administration is making Medicare anti-fraud efforts an important priority. In recent months, HHS has said it was multiplying by 10 the number of agents and prosecutors targeting fraud in Miami, Los Angeles and other strategic cities where tens of billions of dollars are believed to be lost each year. The new partnership seeks to have better sharing of real-time intelligence data on health care fraud patterns.

Officials say they also want to increase training and outreach among Medicare providers to reduce documentation errors, while proposed health overhaul legislation would increase background checks on Medicare claimants and impose stiffer penalties for false claims.

Other findings:

--In the Medicaid program for the poor, roughly $18.1 billion, or 9.6 percent of claims, are believed to be improper payments.

--Using a baseline of 12.4 percent in improper payments in the Medicare fee for service program, HHS is setting targets of reducing fraud and waste to 9.5 percent, 8.5 percent, and 8.0 percent, respectively, for fiscal years 2010 through 2012.

Records released in the past week showed that CMS for three years ignored internal watchdog warnings about swindlers stealing millions of dollars by scamming several Medicare programs. The agency received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors but didn't respond to half of them, even after repeated letters.

Government anti-fraud page: http://www.stopmedicarefraud.gov/

ACTUALIZA 3-Dólar sube vs yen tras comunicado de Fed

NUEVA YORK, abr 29 (Reuters) - El dólar ampliaba sus alzas frente al yen el miércoles, después de que la Reserva Federal mantuviera las tasas de interés sin cambios como se esperaba y dijera que el ritmo de declive de a economía estadounidense parecía estar desacelerándose.

Eso estimuló más el apetito de riesgo, lo que provocó ganancias adicionales en otras monedas de rendimiento más alto como el dólar australiano y dólar neozelandés.

"El tono parecía haber sido algo más optimista que en las reuniones previas", dijo Greg Salvaggio, vicepresidente de mercados de capital de Tempus Consulting, en Washington.

La Fed está "notando signos modestos de mejora y mantendrá la meta a los niveles actuales, como se esperaba. Para los mercados de monedas, la declaración de la Fed parece estar ayudando al dólar un poco, en particular contra el yen".

El alza de la tolerancia al riesgo estimuló al yen, que junto con el dólar habían subido a comienzos de semana cuando la incertidumbre acerca del impacto de un brote de influenza porcina había generado búsqueda de seguridad en las monedas, que son consideradas de bajo riesgo.

En las operaciones de media tarde, el dólar subía un 1,4 por ciento frente al yen a 97,68 desde los 96,95 yenes cotizados poco antes del anuncio de la Fed. El euro seguía un 1,2 por ciento más alto frente al dólar a 1,3297 dólares .

En un comunicado tras una reunión de dos días sobre política monetaria, la Fed dijo que seguiría manteniendo las tasas excepcionalmente bajas por un período extenso, aunque no se anunciaron nuevas medidas de política.

(Reporte adicional de Vivian Rodrigues; Editado en español por Rodolfo Saavedra)

Que es forex

Forex, acrónimo de Foreign Exchange (Intercambio de Monedas Extranjeras). También conocido como Mercado Internacional de Divisas. Antes de ingresar a este entorno, es aconsejable investigar si la empresa con la cual se desarrollará la actividad, si éstas poseen registros mercantiles y las certificaciones pertinentes para poder desarrollar este tipo de actividades dentro de un marco de legalidad y bajo qué legislaciones están regidas.

El mercado de moneda extranjera (Forex o FX) existe dondequiera que una moneda se negocie con otra (como una casa de cambio). Es el mercado en gran medida más grande del mundo, en términos de valor de efectivo negociado, e incluye negociar entre los bancos grandes, los bancos centrales, los especuladores de la moneda, las corporaciones multinacionales, los gobiernos, y otros mercados financieros e instituciones. Los comerciantes al por menor (especuladores pequeños) son una parte pequeña de este mercado y pueden participar directamente por medio de empresas dedicadas a ofrecer servicios de TRADING o indirectamente a través de corredores o de los bancos y pueden ser blanco de estafadores de la divisa.