Doctors Whose Pilot Project Increased Costs Owe Government $8M

A Texas medical group must return $8 million it received from the federal government for a pilot project that ended up increasing expenses associated with high-cost Medicare patients.

The challenge by Texas Tech Physicians Associates to the methodology of the study that showed the increased costs, and especially its challenge to the composition of the patient “control group,”, was meritless, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled March 7.

TTPA’s project involved “intensive management” of high-cost Medicare patients through a “system of telephone contacts, letters, site visits, and physician contacts” aimed at coordinating their care, the court ...