A Maryland woman convicted of submitting $7 million in fraudulent claims to the District of Columbia Medicaid program has been sentenced to more than six years in prison, states the Washington Post Fifty-five-year-old Jacqueline Wheeler of Chevy Chase, Md., was also ordered to pay $3.17 million in restitution at sentencing Friday.
Protecting Medicare BenefitsUnder the new health reform law, your existing Medicare-covered benefits can’t be reduced or taken away. As always, you will be able to choose your own doctors. Fighting FraudThe health care law helps stop fraud with tougher screening procedures, stronger penalties, and new technology. Thanks in part to these efforts, we recovered $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars in 2011, the second year recoveries hit this record-breaking level. Total recoveries over the lastthree years were $10.7 billion. Prosecutions are way up, too: the number of individuals charged with fraud increased from 821 in fiscal year 2008 to 1,430 in…
By upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court has preserved—at least for now—major benefits for seniors and key changes in the way long-term care supports and services are delivered and financed, states Forbes. Here are some provisions of the law that directly affect the frail elderly and younger adults with disabilities. Medicaid: The law is filled with important changes to this state/federal program that currently funds nearly half of all paid long-term care services. While the Supreme Court ruled that most of the 2010 health law is constitutional, it threw out one important provision that would…
In upholding the President Obama's health reform law, the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court ensured the preservation and continued roll-out of improvements and protections for older adults. These improvements include the extension of Medicaid’s spousal impoverishment protections to those seeking long-term care in the community, financial incentives for states to keep long-term care recipients out of institutions, the gradual closing of Medicare Part D’s infamous “doughnut hole,” expanded access to preventive services for Medicare beneficiaries, and the Elder Justice Act. The Court did, however, scale back the Medicaid portion of the law, which could mean that fewer near-elderly will…
A helpful AARP study entitled "Outsmarting the Scam Artists" suggests that different demographic groups are more likely to fall victim to certain types of scams. For example, fraudulent claims about unique investment opportunities most often affect college-educated white men in their sixties. These scams often claim the chance to invest in oil drilling or gold mining. Lottery scams, where foreign lottery winnings are claimed with a need to send a small fee to collect, are most likely to affect women in their seventies who live alone and often have less education and financial literacy.
If there’s any lesson to be learned from the recent debacle in Washington, D.C., it’s this: Don’t run your personal finances the way the U.S. government does. “Don’t live beyond your means, and don’t increase your debt levels, especially when heading into retirement,” said Greg Rosica, a tax partner in the personal financial services group at Ernst & Young and a contributing author to the Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2011. “Don’t emulate the federal government.” – “How the Debt Deal Will Affect Retirees” I suppose it goes without saying that the past few weeks have been a rather tumultuous…
This Portfolio.com article discussing proposals within the Small Business Administration to reassess, in many areas, expand the definition of a small business. A similar article can be found on Kiplinger but the Portfolio.com article also discusses political action and severe budgetary cuts proposed by the House Small Business Committee. Another resource is the SBA website itself.
For years there has been something of a vacuum working on American markets in the form of an outflow of highly educated immigrant workers returning home to such countries as India and China, because they could not get visas to stay here. As a result, entrepreneurship is booming in those countries, instead of in the U.S. As Bloomberg Businessweek reports though, there is work underway to stem the tide and keep some of this top talent here. The legislation is being put forward by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind) in the form of an updated version of…
If you’re a small business owner, you probably already know that things are not exactly hunky-dory in the business world, but that they are starting to get better. You know this from your own experience, and perhaps a few discussions with your accountant or tax advisor. However, it may be comforting to know that your instincts are probably right, and verified by a couple of recently released key research reports. The National Small Business Association (NSBA) released their 2010 Year-End Economic Report this month and – as you probably already guessed – the news is mixed. Small business owners seem…
Almost 60 years have passed since the last revisions to the patent system, but thanks to a recent Senate decision we may be on the brink of some big changes. The trouble is that if you are an entrepreneur or are an innovative small businessman, you might be coming up short with this reform. As MarketWatch reports, there are a number of changes introduced in the bill even if certain decisions were dropped from the original proposal. The biggest change in the Senate’s overhaul decision is a transition of patent-rights. Whereas patents have always been under a “first to invent”…
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