Medical

Did A Failed Medical Scheduling Project Contribute to the Development of Secret Waiting Lists at the VA?

by | ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, OBAMACARE

Did a failed medical scheduling project at the VA contribute to the development of “secret waiting lists”?

At least one attempt to implement a scheduling system at the VA never got off the ground after nearly a decade of trying.

Apparently a medical scheduling project for the VA was begun in 2000 and was discontinued in 2009, 9 years after it the project began — and it remained utterly unfinished. Nothing seems to have been done for another 3 years until 2012, when the Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs launched a contest to create an app for scheduling — a contest which didn’t close until the summer of 2013. Was it during this interim time between scheduling systems that the practice of “secret lists” began as a coverup/bandaid for the problem?

According to a press release in 2013 announcing the winners in the “scheduling app” contest, it was noted that the “VA started to develop a Medical Scheduling Package replacement in 2000. This effort was not successful. When VA ended the project in 2009, none of the planned capabilities were delivered. It had cost more than $127 million”.

So, was used at the VA between the end of the Medical Scheduling Package project in 2009 and the Medical Scheduling App Contest of 2012/2013?

We now know there were secret waiting lists as some of the facilities. It also appears the the Obama Administration knew about the “secret waiting lists” as early as 2010. The Daily Caller reports that there was an internal VA investigation in 2010 regarding “paper” waiting lists:

“We conducted this review to determine the validity of an allegation that senior officials in Veterans Integrated Service Network 20 (VISN) instructed employees at the Portland VA Medical Center to use unauthorized wait lists to hide access and scheduling problems,” according to an August 17, 2010 VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report entitled “Review of Alleged Use of Unauthorized Wait Lists at the Portland VA Medical Center”

Underfunding the Department of Veterans Affairs is not the problem. From 2007 to 2012, enrollment in VA services has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2012. At the same time, the VA budget went from $82 million to $125 million — a 53% increase, and the biggest jump in the VA’s budget history since records go back to 1940. The failed Medical Scheduling Package project alone cost $127 million dollars.

$127 million is a lot of taxpayer monies that could have been used on veterans’ treatments. Yet even with a generous budget, the VA could not deliver quality services to our Veterans.

New York State and Medical Billing Issues

by | ARTICLES, BLOG, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, NEW YORK, OBAMACARE

Would any consumer-driven industry be able to get away with this?

“Surprise medical bills occur when a consumer does everything possible to use hospitals and doctors that are in the consumer’s insurance plan, but nonetheless receives a bill from a specialist or other medical provider by whom the consumer did not know he or she would be treated, and who was outside his or her plan’s network of providers.

Worse, a relatively small but significant number of out-of-network specialists appear to take advantage in emergency care situations in particular, where the consumer has little choice or ability to “shop” for an appropriate provider. Too frequently, out-of-network specialists charge excessive fees — many times larger than what private or public insurers typically allow. In one example, a New Yorker who severed his finger in an accident went to participating hospital and ultimately received an $83,000 bill from a plastic surgeon who reattached the finger but – unbeknownst to the patient — was outside the insured’s network of providers.

The problem of surprise bills is not limited to emergency situations. They also can occur when a consumer schedules health care services in advance and an in-network provider, such as an anesthesiologist, is not available. In these instances, consumers are not told that the provider is out-of-network, not informed about how much the provider will charge, or not advised how much the insurer will cover. This lack of disclosure not only ill serves the consumer, but also undermines the efficiency of the health insurance market because consumers cannot effectively comparison shop for benefits or services”

This except from is part of a larger letter from Benjamin M. Lawsky, Superintendent of Financial Services for New York State, written to members of the New York State Legislature. You can read the letter here.

In any other industry, this would ALL be considered fraud.