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Medicare fraud perpetuated by individuals is u likely to be that high. Overbilling by hospital corporations and medical device companies could be possible. But
by chrisgd 2y ago
Medicare fraud perpetuated by individuals is u likely to be that high. Overbilling by hospital corporations and medical device companies could be possible. But corporations aren’t the target of DOGE.
- nxobject 2y agoNot just by individuals - by Medicare Advantage managed care organizations, too… like the biggest insurers in this country.
- joe_the_user 2y agoYes but still not the target of DOGE
- nxobject 2y agoOh yes, I agree with you - I just wanted to mention another source of unaccountable spending on Medicare.
- Taikonerd 2y agoThe 40% estimate is for fraud and waste combined. "Waste" being things like unnecessary MRIs.
- slantedview 2y agoNobody gets an MRI for fun.
- pugio 2y agoI do. I think it's interesting to have scans of parts of my body – brain, body fat/muscle distribution, etc. I also use them as reference for how my body changes over the decades. (EDIT: Nothing to do with medicare or fraudulent billing. Just pushing back on the "for fun" point. I can fall asleep in those things.)
- RealityVoid 2y agoI expect MRI to be a high capex investment but low cost to run it each time. Maybe someone more knowledgeable might step in. Of course, to play devil's advocate, using an MRI because you have it might lead to acquiring more MRI machines because of the high usage of the existing ones, I guess.
- foota 2y agoMRI techs are paid a lot of money, so I don't think it's entirely free on the margins.
- hmottestad 2y agoI don't think there are all that many MRI machines that just sit there, unused, most of the day. There might be some hospitals that want to reserve their MRI machine for emergencies, so that it's less likely that you'll have to wait when you really need it. I found this page here with some info about costs: https://info.atlantisworldwide.com/blog/the-cost-of-an-mri-what-you-should-know https://info.atlantisworldwide.com/blog/the-cost-of-an-mri-w... Even though they name cost of operation, energy use, cost of spare parts, maintenance and repair as expenses for running an MRI. It looks to me like the biggest cost by far is going to be the acquisition and installation. So if you've invested in an MRI machine you probably want it to be in use as much as possible in order to recoup the cost of the machine.
- adastra22 2y agoThere could be though. That's a manufacturing problem.
- KingMob 2y agoI used to do MRI experiments in grad school for neuroscience. One time, I got curious, and did some back-of-the-envelope math on how much they cost. In NYC, an MRI machine drew as much energy in 20 minutes, as my apartment did in a month. Between electricity, keeping a superconductor cool, and personnel costs, it cost ~$100/hr in a medical facility, 20 years ago.
- small_scombrus 2y agoThey give them to people like they're going out of style. Why just last week I had fourteen of them myself!
- thejazzman 2y agothat's it?
- Taikonerd 2y agoThat's true. But under a fee-for-service (FFS) model, providers get paid per procedure they do. That gives them an incentive to order more testing, and generally "do more stuff." There's also an IT angle (relevant for HN!): medical systems don't always talk to each other. Which means that maybe the patient got an MRI last month, in a different health system... but I don't have access to it in my health system, so I order a redundant one.
- bsimpson 2y agoI wonder how they determine an MRI is wasteful. When I got hit by a car in Italy, a CAT scan was a standard part of the triage process. Then I went to the ortho in the US and she was flabbergasted - apparently the bar is much higher to get one here.