General Surgery Coding Alert

Question: Is it true that we have only 60 days to return any overpayments to federal health programs?

Codify Subscriber

Answer: Yes, CMS issued a rule last year setting a 60-day limit on returning overpayments to federal agencies. The important thing to remember is that while the rule might seem simple, it actually represents some big changes related to compliance – and a practice that fails to comply might face huge penalties.

The reasoning: Every practice occasionally handles overpayments, but the 60-day rule is designed to help practices identify systemic overpayment problems. Federal officials expect providers to sniff out coding or billing issues, and to move swiftly to address those issues. Any overpayments you discover should then be refunded within the 60-day window, and the underlying problem fixed to avoid future overpayments. Remember that the clock starts ticking on the date the issue is discovered, not the date of service or payment.

Dealing with any overpayments quickly is important because if federal agencies discover that you knew about overpayments and failed to repay them promptly, you could be looking at penalties related to the False Claims Act or the Civil Monetary Penalties Law. In the worst case scenario, your practice could be excluded from all federal healthcare programs.