MedPageToday: ‘Frailty Index’ Would Ensure Fairer Medicare Pay for Docs

Gail Wilensky, PhD, administrator of CMS during the George H.W. Bush administration, said that although fraud is always a concern in Medicare, it’s no excuse for not trying to fix the problem of potentially underpaying doctors who care for frail patients. Adding in a frailty index “should be considered, with some serious thought about how to mitigate against the fraud concern,” Wilensky, now a senior fellow at Project HOPE in Bethesda, Maryland, said in a phone interview.

“Errors in both directions are a concern,” she added. “You worry about people being underpaid partly on an equity basis, but more on whether or not they’ll be discouraged from accepting Medicare patients…. What you want is to get the payment right while you try to save money. Underpaying can lead to undesirable consequences, just like overpaying can.”