Patients Died, but U.S. Paid Bills to Come

Over the past decade, the government paid $4.1 million to cover future medical costs for patients who were dead, government inspectors reported Friday.

The Health Care Financing Administration paid health maintenance organizations on patients’ behalf although Medicare listed the beneficiaries as dead, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general said.

The Medicare agency paid premiums for 200 people who had died between 1991 and 1999, the report said.

The main Medicare database listed the patients as dead, but a smaller HHS database of HMO participants didn’t always square the deaths with the master Medicare database, the report said.

The report said $3.2 million of the misdirected funds are still outstanding, but Health Care Financing Administration officials said they have recovered $4 million.