Recently published watchdog report found that private Medicare plans routinely rejected claims that should have been paid and denied services that reviewers found to be medically necessary. This report conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general investigators, which discovered that private Medicare plans denied 18 percent of claims allowed under Medicare coverage rules. The denials often were a result of errors in processing claims. The review also found private Medicare plans turned down 13 percent of authorizations for medical services that government-run Medicare would have allowed. For detailed understanding we shared observations of OIG where they found that some of the claims were wrongly denied by private Medicare plans.
Report Findings
This review determined that Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) sometimes delayed or denied Medicare Advantage beneficiaries’ access to services, even though the requests met Medicare coverage rules. MAOs also denied payments to providers for some services that met both Medicare coverage rules and MAO billing rules. Denied requests that meet Medicare coverage rules may prevent or delay beneficiaries from receiving medically necessary care and can burden providers. Although some of the denials that OIG reviewed were ultimately reversed by the MAOs, avoidable delays and extra steps create friction in the program and may create an administrative burden for beneficiaries, providers, and MAOs. Examples of health care services involved in denials that met Medicare coverage rules included advanced imaging services (e.g., MRIs) and post-acute facility stays (e.g., inpatient rehabilitation).
Prior Authorization Requests
OIG found that, among the prior authorization requests that MAOs denied, 13 percent met Medicare coverage rules; in other words, these services likely would have been approved for these beneficiaries under original Medicare (also known as Medicare fee-for-service). The review report identified two common causes of these denials. First, MAOs used clinical criteria that are not contained in Medicare coverage rules (e.g., requiring an x-ray before approving more advanced imaging), which led them to deny requests for services that our physician reviewers determined were medically necessary. Although review determined that the requests in these cases did meet Medicare coverage rules, CMS guidance is not sufficiently detailed to determine whether MAOs may deny authorization based on internal MAO clinical criteria that go beyond Medicare coverage rules. Second, MAOs indicated that some prior authorization requests did not have enough documentation to support approval, yet our reviewers found that the existing beneficiary medical records were sufficient to support the medical necessity of the services.
Payment Requests
The review found that, among the payment requests that MAOs denied, 18 percent of the requests met Medicare coverage rules and MAO billing rules. Most of these payment denials in the sample were caused by human error during manual claims processing reviews (e.g., overlooking a document) and system processing errors (e.g., the MAO’s system was not programmed or updated correctly). It was also found that MAOs reversed some of the denied prior authorization and payment requests that met Medicare coverage and MAO billing rules. Often the reversals occurred when a beneficiary or provider appealed or disputed the denial, and in some cases MAOs identified their own errors.
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Reference: https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-09-18-00260.asp?hero=mao-report-04-28-2022
