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Friday, November 30, 2012

Risk Adjustment Of Medicare

By Eliza Winters


In order to properly determine the number and amount of payments to be given to the beneficiaries of these plans, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have developed the Medicare risk adjustment model. There are a number of people across the United States who are currently taking advantage of the Medicare Advantage plans offered through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services.

When put into simple terms, this risk adjustment formula takes the patient's health issues and puts a price tag on how much each issue will likely cost the private health care plan over a period of time. Risk adjustment has been used within Medicare and Medicaid for a long period of time and is constantly being improved and researched.

The amount of money that a patient, or plan member, is likely to incur over one year is what represents their "risk factor". The method of risk adjustment is used throughout the health care industry and insurance companies and is always being further developed and changed. This model is used as a way to determine what the financial risk factor of each individual member is going to be through examining different aspects such as diagnostic data, age, current health status and patient history.

Much of the errors that have taken place are centered around the problems of recording patient visits and activity as well as the sharing of information from provider, health insurer and Medicare. Since the main portion of Medicare risk adjustment is calculated based on claims reporting it puts a large importance on precise and careful reporting between the health care providers to the health insurance plan. When it comes to reporting patient health care and claims information, there are a number of areas that can be cause for calculation errors causing improper risk adjustment.

Many of the errors that occur commonly within this model are because of the reporting that occurs throughout patient interactions and doctor visits. Many different benefits will be able to be realized through the use of high quality and accurate claims reporting and risk adjustment. Also the amount of communication that happens between health care providers, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as well as insurance companies is an important part as well.




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