Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected the health care industry. In some cases, the effects were fleeting, such as hospital over-crowding and supply chain challenges related to masks, oxygen and vent...
Texas OIG Quarterly Report Highlights: Texas Continues to Pursue COVID-19 Related Fraud
The COVID-19 pandemic drove significant changes and expansion in care delivery practices. The federal government and the State of Texas implemented policy and treatment flexibility to ensure continued access to care and ...
CORPORATE INTEGRITY AGREEMENTS – AN OFFRAMP ON THE ROAD TO EXCLUSION
When a health care entity is faced with permissive exclusion from participation in federal health care programs, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) has the discretion to offer a Corporate Int...
FEDERAL COVID-19 FRAUD CRACKDOWN – FULL SPEED AHEAD IN 2021
Beginning in 2021, both the HHS OIG and the DOJ have leveraged their resources to focus to the fraud and abuse schemes against federal health care recipients and programs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic...
Appealing an OIG Exclusion
Every year, hundreds of health care providers and entities receive notification from the HHS OIG that they are being considered for exclusion from participation in federal programs. To date in 2021, 684 individuals and e...
UPDATED: The New Relevance of the Death Master File
The first COVID-related federal stimulus payments were sent in the spring of 2020. Unfortunately, payments were sent to millions of taxpayers who were deceased at the time of payment. Not only did this draw attention ...
Licensure Verification
Introduction For most health care organizations, their primary purpose is to provide high quality patient care to support the best outcomes possible. The qualifications and expertise of an organization’s medic...
MANAGING THROUGH AN EXCLUSION BY THE OIG
AN OVERVIEW of THE OIG’S LIST OF EXCLUDED INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES Since 1977, the federal government has maintained a list of individuals and entities that are excluded from participation in any federal health care...
THE IMPORTANCE OF SANCTION SCREENING TO YOUR ORGANIZATION
What Is A Sanction Check Sanctions against medical personnel can create significant risk to a healthcare organization from financial, compliance and patient safety perspectives. Therefore, it is critical that organi...