Medicare

Introduction
Reducing Medicare costs will be an important enterprise in the future as the baby boom generation retires. In the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, Congressional debate was as much about “limiting government’s future exposure to cost increases”1 as it was about creating a new prescription drug benefit for Medicare. Grassroots efforts to reduce costs through incentives to physicians have been attempted, but without much success. An actuarial team from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported in 1998 that when...

The “B” in the Medicare Part B program may come to be known as “BIG,” as in big changes; both the physician reimbursement component of Medicare Part B, as well as the coverage of outpatient medications, are undergoing major changes. Medicare Part B, also known as medical insurance, covers physician services. Physician and other providers, such as nurse practitioners, are paid for by Medicare under a fee schedule dictated by Medicare. In addition to physician services, Medicare Part B also covers supplies such as durable medical services and medications provided within a physician of...

A great deal has happened since the start of the Medicare Part D programs, resulting in a whole host of new issues and questions that we will address and answer on an ongoing basis. We also encourage you to submit questions so that we can address concerns and issues in the pages of the Journal for everyone’s benefit.

On January 1, the Medicare prescription drug plan began. Soon after, difficulties were exposed with the program in two major areas: enrollment and accessing medications. People seemed surprised that these difficulties grew rather than lessened over the first few weeks...