More Opinions Columnists

• V.B. Price: Preserving our water is greatest challenge the city, state faces
• Jeffry Gardner: End of The Trib is part of the demise of serious journalism
• Katherine Augustine: Time with friends from Japan provides treasured memories

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Just when you think Medicare beneficiaries can't take any more bad news, a new blunder surfaces.

The Associated Press reports that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services paid for a study of chemotherapy side-effects that would be documented by cancer doctors across the country. The study was supposed to give information on pain, fatigue and nausea caused to elderly and disabled patients by treatments for cancer. The information was to have been used as a catalyst for improving treatment programs and innovating care.

Instead, the study turned into a cash cow for physicians, who were paid $130 by Medicare and $26 by patients each time they submitted documentation. The Inspector General deemed the study unreliable.

"We identified numerous anomalies and gaps in the data and collection methods," said the report from Inspector General Daniel Levinson.

How much did this study cost? A whopping $275 million, of which the average doctor received about $23,000, the AP reported. But ten doctors took the study for every penny they could get, squeezing from $270,000 to $625,803 each.

The study was considered useless by physicians who doubted any improvement in patient care would result. The Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley of Iowa, said taxpayers and beneficiaries were "bilked," because they paid for information that physicians already are supposed to provide.

Medicare says the study did have some benefit. It proved that if you pay doctors to share medical information, they will. Did Medicare really need to spend millions to find that out?

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to spend another $60 million over the next eight years to research quality-of-care issues. The center regularly pays hospitals for information on treatment initiatives, such as how often a heart-attack patient is given aspirin in the emergency room. Going into the doctor's office to track a treatment for a high-cost illness such as cancer is supposed give the center and physicians comprehensive reports to initiate new forms of treatment.

I understand the need to pay doctors for the time and effort of tracking and reporting cases to the government. The time spent on Medicare paperwork is the biggest expense a physician has. Medicare and Medicaid stretch doctors to the limit in getting them to comply with government regulations. In a typical oncologist's office, one doctor needs a staff of four to seven people to keep up with the mounds of paperwork required to be reimbursed for services rendered.

While the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services pays for studies, it plans to cut physician reimbursement by 40 percent over the next five years. How are doctors supposed to improve care, if they can't afford support staff to stay compliant as a Medicare-approved physician? Why can't the center take its research funding and use it to improve physician reimbursement? Maybe then doctors could participate more in research studies without money incentives.