NEWARK — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez held two contentious discussions with Medicare representatives – including one that included former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius – to press for a reimbursement policy change that would benefit his friend, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, a former top Medicare official testified on Monday.
The first discussion about Salomon Melgen’s $8.9 million Medicare overpayment issue came up in a July 2009 phone call in which Menendez became “very angry” and “very hostile” when Medicare would not change its policy about how physicians are reimbursed for the drug Lucentis, said Jonathan Blum, former principal deputy for the Cent…
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