Federal Judge orders government not
to collect incorrect payments sent to Medicare Part D beneficiaries
On Wednesday,
September 27, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. issued a
preliminary injunction prohibiting the Medicare program from
recovering Part D premium refunds mistakenly sent out by the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) until the affected
beneficiaries are given the opportunity to seek a waiver of
recovery.
CMS sent out a letter in late August demanding that the 230,000
beneficiaries who received the premium refunds repay them by
September 30, 2006. The letter did not include a statement that the
Medicare statute requires recovery of incorrect payments such as
these to be waived in specified circumstances.
Acting on a
lawsuit filed by Action Alliance of Senior Citizens and Gray
Panthers, Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. ordered CMS to send out a new
letter informing the affected beneficiaries that they have a right
to request a waiver of recovery and that CMS must refund any
repayments that have been made, thus giving all 230,000 the chance
to request a waiver.
Gill Deford, an
attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc., which
represented the plaintiffs, said: “The judge did the right thing.
The courts said 30 years ago that beneficiaries have to be informed
of their right to a waiver when they receive an incorrect payment.
The government just compounded its original mistake when it didn’t
tell people of this basic right.”
The erroneous premium refunds were a result of a computer error
involving the new Part D prescription drug program. For 230,000 of
the Part D enrollees who have their monthly premiums deducted from
their Social Security benefits, the amount of their monthly premium
was mistakenly sent to them in August.
Claiming that the Medicare waiver statute did not apply to mistaken
Part D premium refunds, CMS then demanded that the money, which
averaged $215 per person, be returned. Center for Medicare Advocacy
Executive Director Judith Stein contacted CMS administrators,
including Mark McClellan, both in writing and by phone in order to
request that the right to a waiver be included in the original
letter, but CMS declined to take action on the concerns. The lawsuit
followed.