Healthcare Digest 5/28: Cosmetic Eyelifts for Seniors a Drag on Medicare

Sometimes there are news stories about how our older citizens — your grandmas, your grandpas, your kindly old people who order a coffee from McDonalds and nothing else — are being taken advantage of by Medicare. Sometimes it’s Medicare fraud; sometimes it’s the complicated ways Medicare requires engagement. Usually those stories have the thesis of: is this any way to treat our most vulnerable Americans? IS IT?

But now, it turns out old people are using Medicare for eye lifts — so screw ‘em.

I know, I know: I hear you: “For cases in which a patient’s sagging eyelids significantly hinder their vision, it does pay to have them lifted.”

The problem, of course, is that hindered vision is kind of subjective. What isn’t subjective is the cost: “From 2001 to 2011, eyelid lifts charged to Medicare more than tripled to 136,000 annually, according to a review of physician billing data by the Center for Public Integrity. In 2001, physicians billed taxpayers a total of $20 million for the procedure. By 2011, the price tag had quadrupled to $80 million. The number of physicians billing the surgery more than doubled.”

The article that details his is a little on the long-reads side — but definitely worth your time. It establishes how these abuses happens, and why it can be difficult for an organization like Medicare to track and handle them.

Tuesday’s Headlines:

Healthful Smoothies as an Employee Perk: “Employers have increased their focus on using healthcare benefits to improve employee engagement over the 15 years that Employee Benefits has conducted its annual healthcare research.” So, you know: invest in a blender and some of those ball chairs. You’re done! [Employee Benefits]

The Risks of Healthcare and Mobile Security: “When healthcare organizations’ IT and compliance staffs converge to implement a mobile platform for clinical staff users, technical and policy concerns are usually at the forefront of the decision-making process.” [Health IT Security]

Is it Really Forgotten When it’s All That Gets Written About?: “The real health care battle in this country isn’t the one being fought over the bill everyone now calls ‘Obamacare.’ In fact, it’s not a battle between Republicans and Democrats at all. The real battle is the one millions of Americans face every day as they struggle to pay medical bills that now average nearly $10,000 per year — if they’re ‘lucky.’” Boy, do I love ironic quotation marks. [Huffington Post]

Patients Invested in Their Medical Care a Drain on Healthcare in General: “A hospital-based study found that patients who want to participate in their medical decisions end up spending more time in the hospital and raising costs of their hospital stay by an average of $865.” That’s the spirit, Medicine! [News-Medical]

Stay Classy, Republicans: “If Republicans were writing a movie script for next year’s congressional elections, the working title might be ’2014: Apocalypse of Obamacare.’” [News Max]