Medicare Adjusting Reimbursement For Dialysis.

The Washington Post  (1/31, Whoriskey) reports, "The Medicare system is recalculating how much it will reimburse hospitals and clinics for the drugs used to treat dialysis patients after federal auditors found recently that the program could save as much as $880 million annually." An August analysis by the Post "showed that the government was overspending by hundreds of millions for just one group of those drugs." This occurred because the government was reimbursing for a dose that was higher than most people received. Dennis Cotter, president of the Medical Technology and Practice Patterns Institute, a research group, who called for price changes in 2011, said, "It's good that Medicare is finally going to set a new, more accurate price. It's unfortunate that they could have done this two years ago. This has so far cost taxpayers more than $1.6 billion."