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The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act

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A current important issue in healthcare is the addition of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). This program is for families and individuals with limited resources and low income. This program ensures that individuals who fall under these categories are able to have medical and financial benefits (Martin, 2015). The Affordable Care Act is a program that has expanded the eligibility for more citizens to receive benefits under Medicaid. Citizens that fall under the poverty line now qualify for coverage in all states that have a Medicaid program. In the United States, Medicaid and ACA is the largest source of funding of medical services for people with low income (Martin, 2015). This act was predominately passed to help …show more content…

In addition, to protect the public resources that fund the Medicaid programs and maintain balance by paying claims and eliminating burdens on the providers while preventing and detecting fraud. Medicaid or ACA fraud can be conducted in a manner of ways, the most common seen are; Medicaid billed for services never done and equipment that was never used or was returned, d documents that were altered to receive higher payments, misrepresentation of dates, descriptions of furnished services, or the identity of the beneficiary, use of a person’s Medicaid card and ACA without the persons permission, and a company that uses false information to mislead someone into joining a Medicare plan (Collica-Cox, 2015). The addition of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has helped the CMS narrow down and shut down fraud. The government has new regulations of requirements for providers and what providers can participate under the ACA (Martin, 2015). There is additional screening for providers such as unscheduled visits, fingerprinting, background check, application fees, license checks, and most importantly they are now required face to face with patients before home health services. The government can suspend payments to providers under investigation. In addition, they can temporarily stop admission of new providers in the country when waste, fraud, and abuse are assumed

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