Alphabet Soup from our Masters

The Medicare bureaucracy has exploded into a Medusa-like spherical blob that consumes everything in its wake. I receive daily emails from my states' Medicare contractor. Each state is a part of a sector geographically where a middle layer of bureaucracy interprets and implements the morass of rules coming out of Washington' Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS). I found this out when I signed up to participate in Medicare 16 years ago. Florida has since become a part of the sector that oversee Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Yes, if you have Medicare and you live on those islands, you're set. I have no clue how much this extra layer of bureaucracy costs the taxpayer. It's there because Washington is such an extreme behemoth it can't delegate the tasks to an office for each state. No, each state must have its own middleman as it were. I doubt the government could even provide a balance sheet of what these "Medicare Administrative Contractors" cost.

For entertainment purposes, here is a sample of one of the latest emails. Mind you, I've signed up to receive filtered and relevant content, such as that for Medicare Part B Outpatient directives. No matter, I need to wade through it all.

In this Edition:

 

News & Announcements

• Medicare Makes Enhancements to the Shared Savings Program to Strengthen Incentives for Quality Care
• TEP on Refinement of NQF #0678: Nominations due June 10
• New PEPPER for Short-term Acute Care Hospitals and June 21 Webinar
• 2016 PQRS GPRO Registration Open through June 30
• Long-Term Care Facilities: Mandatory Submission of Staffing Data via PBJ Begins July 1
• Antipsychotic Drug use in Nursing Homes: Trend Update
• Home Health Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings TEP Summary Available

Claims, Pricers, and Codes

• 2017 ICD-10-PCS Updates Available

Upcoming Events

• Physician Compare Initiative Call — June 16
• IRF Tier Comorbidity Updates: Soliciting Stakeholder Input Call — June 16
• Quality Measures and the IMPACT Act Call — July 7

Medicare Learning Network® Publications & Multimedia

• Updated Information on the IVIG Demonstration MLN Matters® Article — New
• June 2016 Catalog Available
• Medicaid Program Integrity: What Is a Prescriber’s Role in Preventing the Diversion of Prescription Drugs? Fact Sheet — Revised
• Vaccine and Vaccine Administration Payments under Medicare Part D Fact Sheet — Revised
• Reading the Institutional Remittance Advice Booklet — Reminder
• Medicare Enrollment Guidelines for Ordering/Referring Providers Fact Sheet — Reminder

It would take days to decipher what this means. And this is just one days' email. Every day I get an email with identical content and appearance. 

When the governed are placed in a situation where the rules are so numerous, so arbitrary, and continually changing, a certain helplessness sets in. It isn't within the scope of daily practice for a physician to comprehend, let alone implement, this barrage of alphabet soup being thrown our way. 

This is one example of the enormity of government regulation on the practice of medicine. Hence the anger and frustration of the American physician.