Home Health & Hospice Week

Don't forget your board when planning your compliance educational efforts. While a corporate compliance plan isn't a Medicare requirement yet, you're courting disaster if you don't have one. That's because a home care organization's compliance plan performs a number of vital functions, legal experts point out. They include showing authorities you're playing by the rules, instituting self-audits that catch problems before the feds do, and giving you some leverage if you do get slapped with allegations of impropriety (see HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 23, p. 178 for more compliance plan benefits). And a compliance plan is likely to become a Medicare requirement for you soon enough. The health care reform law passed this year includes a directive for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to require compliance plans of as-yet-un-specified providers under Medicare conditions of participation. That group will most likely include home care providers, who have been painted [...]