Sen Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) is questioning top health officials about their failure to deliver an annual assessment of the level of improper Medicare payments.
Sen Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) wants to know why annual reports to Congress on Medicare's ability to monitor improper payments have not been submitted for the last 2 years.
Grassley, in a December 17 letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Charlene Frizzera, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, asked why Congress had yet to receive the fiscal year 2009 report from the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing program, which is supposed to monitor the accuracy of Medicare fee-for-service payments and detail improper payment rates. Grassley, who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, noted that the fiscal year 2008 report had also not been sent to Congress.