Senators Use HHS Approps Bill To Push Medicare Appeals System Fix

Senate appropriators hope to prod CMS to improve the backlogged Medicare appeals process by tucking language into their draft fiscal 2015 HHS spending report urging the agency to insert consistency into all levels of the appeals process and seek congressional help if needed to eliminate the backlog. Stakeholders have long complained about what they view as a broken appeals process, with hospital and beneficiary groups separately suing CMS over the issue. The Senate Appropriations health subcommittee released its draft Labor...