centers for medicare and medicaid services

In PLoS medicine, the following article was recently published by researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia:

An article from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reveals a new aspect of the growing coziness between the US government and big corporations with obvious relevance to health care.

CMS' Coziness with Leaders of the "Capital Markets"

Here is the introduction and the example most relevant to health care:

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- The final physician payment rule for 2012 will cut Medicare payments to doctors by 27.4% starting Jan. 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced.

(MedPage Today) -- The gap in performance on quality measures between accredited and nonaccredited hospitals has widened over time, according to an analysis of data from the Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed the first major revision in more than two decades to the rules that hospitals must abide by in order to participate in Medicare and Medicaid -- a move that was welcomed by hospitals.

The bureaucrats always seem to find new ways to waste precious medical resources and capital to justify their existence.

Here's the latest twist:

I regularly feed swans, ducks and geese at my local park.

In fact, I don't seek them out; the geese in particular come to me when they see me on the trail. They know me for years.

They have tremendous vision, so I can't escape them.

Per the WSJ, medical coding is about to become so hypergranular (could the reason be that bureaucrats needed work to do?) as to be reasonably considered insane:

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- Officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it won't change its payment policy on erythropoiesis stimulating agents used to treat anemia in kidney patients.

Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the Federally Qualified Health Center Advanced Primary Care Practice (FQHC APCP) demonstration project, a new Affordable Care Act initiative that will pay an estimated $42 million over three years to up to 500 FQHCs to coordinate care for Medicare patients.

This demonstration project, operated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in partnership with the Health

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced it will decrease what it pays to Medicare Advantage plans in 2012, reversing an earlier proposal that laid out a slight increase.

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it likely won't change its payment policy on erythropoiesis stimulating agents used to treat anemia in kidney patients.