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The Medicare program is plagued with fraud, estimated by the Department of Justice to be $60 billion a year. Yesterday Senator Mark Kirk (R- IL) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced The Medicare Common Access Card Act, a bill to prevent fraud before it happens, saving taxpayers billions.

Ohio, Chicago, Maine, Miami, Mississippi, and Detroit newspapers all published similar stories last week about blatant Medicare scams that make you wonder why the country’s not deeper in debt.

This morning VISA announced plans to incentivize the adoption of more secure payments in the United States, specifically EMV.  By adopting the international EMV standard, VISA is promoting both increased security and interoperability. To read more, please see VISA’s announcement.

At the March 30, 2011 Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and other Agencies held a hearing on the FY 2012 Health and Human Services (HHS) Budget, Senator Kirk (R- IL) questioned HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the outdated Medicare Card issued to America’s seniors.  In a system that is riddled with fraud, waste and abuse, Sen. Kirk suggested that knowing who is receiving services and who is providing them could significantly help reduce the amount of fraud in Medicare - currently estimated b y the Department of Justice to be $60 billion per year. 

An interesting dichotomy popped up at Wednesday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on Strengthening Medicare and Medicaid.  Testifying before the Committee, Dr. Donald Berwick, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), made an impassioned plea to promote and encourage preventative medicine for a number of healthcare problems such as diabetes and cancer, arguing that getting at the problems early would save thousands of lives and millions of dollars.  However when asked about Medicare fraud, prevention was nowhere to be found, ironically recommending after-the-fact enforcement.  With thinking like this, it’s almost certain the Medicare will be gurney-bound for the morgue by 2025.

Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) issued the final rule defining “Meaningful Use” for electronic health records (EHRs). Unfortunately, the definition does little to address concerns about the protection of personal health information and provides no guidance on the requirements to securely access electronic medical records.