GAO Investigates Medicare Administrator

Associated Press

The Medicare administrator "undermined the integrity" of Medicare's contracting system by retaliating against a University of Wisconsin researcher who questioned aspects of the agency's program for comparisons of nursing homes, government investigators reported.

Investigators from the General Accounting Office concluded that administrator Thomas Scully canceled up to $1.6 million in new work for Wisconsin's Center for Health Systems Research & Analysis last September the same day it had been approved by Medicare staff.

"There is no entitlement to government contracts — especially when you try to sandbag the agency you contract with," Scully, who heads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said last fall in an e-mail to David Zimmerman, head of the Wisconsin research center.

Another e-mail to Zimmerman included in the GAO report was even more blunt: "If you want to continue to yank my chain, I will continue to disconnect you from this agency." ---

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