STAT+: Former top Medicare official says Medicare Advantage’s coding industry offers ‘no benefit to society’

Former top Medicare official says Medicare Advantage’s coding industry offers “no benefit to society.”

Parts of the Medicare Advantage program — essentially, private Medicare plan options — are ripe for reform, former and current top Medicare officials said Wednesday.

One of the most abused areas is risk coding, where health insurers document people’s illnesses and conditions as a way to get higher payments from the federal government, the officials said.

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