THE DAILY FED
Medicare Upgrade Abandoned
The Clinton administration has abandoned an effort to create a single national Medicare computer system, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The administration on Monday terminated a contract with GTE for a new Medicare computer system that was touted as a way to speed payment of claims, improve customer service and combat fraud in Medicare.
Officials said the project was supposed to create a single national computer system to pay doctors, hospitals, laboratories, nursing homes and health maintenance organizations. However, efforts to consolidate and modernize Medicare's antiquated existing systems were unsuccessful.
Federal officials said the job had turned out to be more complicated than anticipated, because the current system is run by 72 private insurance companies around the country using 10 different computer systems.
Medicare officials said Monday they would begin working on individual pieces of the system rather than tackling the entire project at once.
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