Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Duplicate Medicare Payments to Cost-Based Health Maintenance Plan Capital Health Plan, Inc. for Fiscal Years 2002 Through 2004

Issued on  | Posted on  | Report number: A-05-06-00029

Report Materials

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Our objective was to determine whether medical services provided for Capital health Plans, Inc.'s (Capital) enrollees by providers were reimbursed under Capital's Medicare capitation agreement and also through the Medicare fee-for-service payment system. We determined that Capital's capitated providers filed Medicare claims, for which they were paid on a fee-for-service basis, while under a capitation arrangement with Capital. The capitation arrangement, which provides for a per-member, per-month payment to Capital's capitated provider, covered allowable service performed by the provider to Capital's enrollees. Medicare reimbursed Capital for the capitation payments made to the provider via the Medicare cost reports; therefore, the fee-for-service claims paid directly to the provider by Medicare are considered overpayments since Medicare has, in effect, paid twice for the same service. During our audit period, inappropriate Medicare fee-for-service billings by Capital's capitated provider amounted to $132,075. We recommended that Capital recover the $132,075 in duplicate Medicare fee-for-service claims and that Capital develop an efficient and effective billing process system to preclude and detect duplicate payments. Capital agreed with our findings and is taking corrective actions to enhance their ability to identify and detect potential duplicate payments. Capital states that the effectiveness of their corrective action is contingent upon their having access to automated physician information that they have previously requested from CMS and its carriers.

-
-
-