Obama Budget Seeks Prior-Authorization Ability For All Medicare Fee-For-Service Items-thegraysheet: The Obama administration pressed its efforts to expand prior-authorization requirements for Medicare services in its fiscal year 2015 federal budget proposal. In the proposal submitted to Congress March 4, the administration repeated its unsuccessful request from last year that CMS be required to make physicians obtain pre-approval for power mobility devices or advanced imaging services. But, in a new proposal, this year’s budget request would also extend CMS’ authority to require prior-authorization to all Medicare fee-for-service items, “particularly those service items that are at the highest risk for improper payment.”
