OIG Cardiac Implant Review Finds $1.5bn In Medicare Payments For Failed, Recalled Devices

Medicare was billed $1.5bn, and beneficiaries paid $140 million in copayments, for procedures associated with replacing seven models of defective or failed cardiac implants, according to preliminary results from an ongoing review by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. The "early alert" from OIG’s investigation blamed a lack of device identifiers on claims forms for masking device performance data.