Medicare’s Efforts To Curb Backlog Of Appeals Not Sufficient, GAO Reports

(By Susan Jaffe for Kaiser Health News)

Despite interventions by Medicare officials, the number of appeals from health care providers and patients challenging denied claims continues to spiral, increasing the backlog of cases and delaying many decisions well beyond the timeframes set by law, according to a government study released Thursday.

The report from the Government Accountability Office, said the backlog “shows no signs of abating.”  It called for the Department of Health and Human Services to improve its oversight of the process and to streamline appeals so that prior decisions are taken into account and repetitive claims are handled more efficiently. Read article here…..

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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