Medicare

The Department of Health and Human Services has given qualified approval for a Medicare provider to give away $20 grocery gift cards to induce seniors to get more taxpayer-funded health screenings, despite concerns the promotion could run afoul of federal anti-kickback laws.

Thousands of Medicare beneficiaries were put at risk of having their private medical information stolen because of security breaches, and the government was slow to notify or help most of the victims, an internal investigation found.

The stimulus law passed in 2009 required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to quickly alert victims of possible identity theft, but the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found the agency often was slow to do so for many of the 13,775 beneficiaries put at risk by 14 recent security breaches.

Safeguards on Medicare funding for community mental health centers are so weak that half the centers have unusually high billing with characteristics that suggest fraud, according to an investigation by the Health and Human Services Department's internal watchdog.

The report focuses on Medicare's Partial Hospitalization Program, which provides outpatient services to help mental health patients after a hospital stay.

The Department of Health and Human Services isn't meeting President Barack Obama's high-profile directive to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in government, failing to report all excessive or inappropriate payments from Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs, the agency's internal watchdog warns.