Home Health & Hospice Week

Watch out for further fraud-fighting measures such as an HHA surety bond. The home care industry once again served as Medicare's whipping boy in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Medicare fraud April 24. The hearing was titled "Anatomy of a Fraud Bust: From Investigation to Conviction." It aimed "to learn from a success story where [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], the HHS Inspector General, and the Justice Department were able to work as a team," said Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in an opening statement for the hearing. The senators asked representatives from CMS, the OIG and DOJ to talk about its takedown of 91 defendants in a record-breaking bust coordinated across the nation last September (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XX, No. 33, p. 259). While the feds referenced that bust, they focused more on the investigation of ABC Home Health and Florida Home Health in [...]