After much struggle and drama, the House of Representatives has finally agreed to pass a temporary two month extension on unemployment insurance benefits, the medicare reimbursement “doc fix”, and the payroll tax cut. This helps Americans right now. However, that doesn’t mean that everything is “over” and settled permanently. The Senate passed a bill that would prevent several problems from happening (for a few months, anyway). After that, they promptly went home to enjoy their holiday vacation time with their families. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, (especially its Republican members), spent several days arguing over the bill, … Continue reading →

The Medicare program has been, essentially, sitting on Medicare claims in order to give lawmakers more time to pass certain extensions. Unfortunately, the program cannot continue to do that indefinitely. The backlog of claims could be more than the program can actually handle. This whole situation has a longer history than you might be aware of. During the Spring and Summer of 2010, there was a situation that has been referred to as the “Medicare doc fix”. At that time, there was the potential that doctors and hospitals would face a 21% cut on their reimbursement for treating Medicare payments. … Continue reading →

Right now, Medicare recipients in certain areas are going to be the first to test out a new federal program that is designed to improve the quality of care that patients who use Medicare receive. The same program is also supposed to lower the costs of care through Medicare. Starting in January of 2012, around 17,000 Medicare patients in the San Francisco Bay Area in California will be involved in a test program that is designed to improve the quality of Medicare, while at the same time, reducing the costs. Specifically, this group of patients are members of San Francisco’s … Continue reading →

Recently, the Senate approved a bill that would have extended the payroll tax cut, would have extended unemployment insurance benefits, and would have prevented massive cuts to Medicare. Today, the Republicans in the House of Representatives have rejected that bill. What does this mean for you? The bill that was approved by the Senate would have provided a solution to several different eminent problems. There are many programs that are going to expire on December 31, 2011. The Senate passed a bill that would prevent financial problems that would directly affect Americans if those programs were allowed to expire. The … Continue reading →