A southwest Missouri hospital has to repay the federal government about $123,000 after filing scores of untrue Medicare claims for treating a form of malnutrition typically found in tropical countries.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says in a report that Cox Medical Center in Branson used a diagnosis code for Kwashiorkor (Qua-Shore-kor) when it should have used a different code. HHS says Kwashiorkor is a severe type of malnutrition that's rare in the U.S. and found most commonly among children in tropical countries during famine.
The report says the Cox Branson errors resulted in overpayments to the hospital of about $123,000, which Cox is repaying.
The hospital attributes the errors to software and coding problems and says Cox helped with the review and has fixed the problems.
