House Committee Investigates Controversy over Medicare Administrator

Send this article to a friend.

Printer friendly version.

House Committee Investigates Controversy over Medicare Administrator

Members of Congress are looking into allegations of conflicts of interest concerning Medicare’s Administrator. The Gallup Organization has sued Medicare chief Thomas Scully, alleging that he illegally retaliated against the survey company after Gallup’s efforts to make the White House Office of Management and Budget aware of potential collusion between The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and a competing survey firm, National Research Corp. The suit cites a sharply-worded March 5th e-mail message that Scully sent to Bob Nielsen, managing partner for Gallup, calling him an “idiot,” “jerk” and “weasel” for attempting to get the new survey firm’s financing stopped until an investigation was conducted. Gallup contends that Gallup and other survey-research firms were cut out of the development process for a national hospital patient satisfaction survey.

The allegation of collusion is the latest in a number of controversies involving Scully. Prior to becoming Medicare’s chief administrator, Scully was a $675,000 a year lobbyist for the hospital industry. In November of last year, the Justice Department halted a huge settlement with HCA, Inc., the nation’s largest hospital chain, over concerns that the proposed deal was too favorable to the company and could damage the government’s civil fraud case against it. According to The New York Times, Senator Grassley said it appears that Medicare officials are “seeking to allow HCA to resolve more than $1 billion of liability to the Medicare program for only $250 million, based on little to no evidence supporting this low figure.” Once agreement on the final case had been reached, HCA, Inc. agreed to pay a total of more than $1.7 billion in civil and criminal penalties, the largest amount ever in a federal health care fraud case.

Sources: “Gallup Organization Sues CMS Administrator Thomas Scully,” The Gallup Organization, April 8, 2003. “Tauzin Puts Heat On Scully,” Roll Call, April 2, 2003. “Lobbyist Is Likely to Lead Medicare and Medicaid,” Robert Pear, The New York Times, March 4, 2001. “Justice Dept. Delays Big Medicare Settlement,” Robert Pear, The New York Times, November 19, 2002.

To read more on this see, “Record Medicare Fraud Settlement Announced” at http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/101805.asp.

July 2003