On February 8, 2017, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) fraud section released new guidance for healthcare entities titled “Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.” The new guidelines do not change any of the existing regulations, but rather provide corporate healthcare entities with added insight into how the DOJ assesses compliance violations.…
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the details of its Medicare hospital patient-status appeals settlement (“the 2016 Settlement”), following CMS’ initial announcement of the reopening on September 28th. The 2016 Settlement comes as the successor of CMS’ 2014 68% settlement (the 68% Settlement), where eligible hospitals were…
On September 28, 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced that it intends to reopen the hospital inpatient status settlement that was initially released in 2014. CMS’ announcement means that eligible providers will be able to to settle their inpatient status claims currently pending appeal. While…
September 19th saw the Washington D.C. District Court (the Court) pass down a decidedly pro-Medicare provider decision, ultimately holding that the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) would not be granted a stay of proceedings as they had yet to make significant progress in reducing the Medicare appeals…
On July 12, 2016, Noridian Healthcare Solutions announced a new policy on denial of related claims, termed “Cross Recovery.” Noridian purports that this policy will help it to fulfill its obligations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by assuring that all Medicare claims are for medically necessary…
On July 6, 2016, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), published a final rule implementing changes to the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), as amended by the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA 2000). The final…
Recently, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) published an alert spotlighting recent fraud, waste, and abuse in the home healthcare setting. Specifically, the alert focused on various types of violations and improper conduct alleged against home health agencies (HHAs), individual physicians, and heads of home-visiting physician groups. The OIG alleges…
On June 28, 2016, CMS held its second special open-door forum (ODF) regarding the Pre-Claim Review Demonstration for home health services (the “Demonstration”). The Demonstration will take place in six states (Illinois, Florida, Texas, Michigan and Massachusetts), all initiating by January 1, 2017, with the earliest start being August 1,…
On June 14, 2016 between 2 and 3pm EST, CMS had a special open-door forum (ODF) regarding its pre-claim review demonstration for home health services (the “Demonstration”) which will take place in Illinois, Florida, Texas, Michigan and Massachusetts (listed chronologically by implementation date; see our prior blog post on the Demonstration…
On June 9, 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released its report on the Medicare system, highlighting the deficiencies within the Medicare audit and appeals process; a bill currently in the Senate would address many of these problems by reforming CMS’ procedures. The GAO report, titled “Opportunities Remain to…