From Health Plan Week - If elected, each of the remaining four Republican presidential candidates has vowed to immediately pack up the health reform law and kick it to the curb. But some provisions of the law are popular with the public, and repealing the law, or even parts of it, could lead to significant new problems that Congress would need to fix. “All of the scenarios out there are just a tangled mess. Read more

From Medicare Advantage News - If there is one key market segment that Medicare plans — and Medicaid ones — will focus on in 2012, it is Medicare-Medicaid dual eligibles. After years of discussion, it looks as though both the federal government and states will accelerate dramatically implementation of programs to improve quality and reduce costs in care for duals, and the result will be big opportunities for plans. Read more

From Report on Medicare Compliance - With advances in cancer treatment, hospital outpatient departments are administering more complex chemotherapy regimens and, in the process, opening themselves up to billing errors. Because nurses typically give a patient several chemotherapy and nonchemotherapy drugs during an encounter, they may make mistakes on the forms used to charge Medicare and other payers. That results in overpayments and lost revenue for hospitals for drug administration. Read more