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Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospice:

Check Your Hospice Hot Spots Before Reviewers Do

Published on Fri Feb 24, 2012

Expect the number of whistleblower suits aimed at hospices to rise. Recent action by the feds should remind you that your hospice documentation needs to be strong enough to stand up to scrutiny -- because it's likely to get it. In January, the Department of Justice joined in a whistleblower lawsuit against for-profit chain AseraCare Hospice (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XXI, No. 2, p. 10). And the HHS Office of Inspector General has entered a $25 million settlement with Odyssey Hospice, now owned by Gentiva Health Services Inc. (see story, this page). You can expect these suits and settlements to be the first of many in the hospice industry, experts predict. "We are seeing a change in how the OIG perceives hospice," judges attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff in Indianapolis. That seems particularly true for for-profit hospices. "That honeymoon period that hospices enjoyed for such a [...]
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