Home Health & Hospice Week

Federal watchdog has its eye on you if physicians are billing for your patients. A factor you may not have much control over could land you on the feds' radar screen. The HHS Office of Inspector General examines physician Part B billing for hospice patients in a new report. The OIG singles out claims that physicians submitted for patients on the hospice benefit, when the hospice also submitted claims containing that physician's services for the patient. Criteria: The overlapping hospice and physician claims had to have the same primary diagnosis and physician, but claims with the GW modifier (indicating the services weren't related to the  terminal illness) were excluded. Out of $165 million Medicare paid physicians for services to hospice beneficiaries in 2009, about $566,000 was "questionable," the OIG says in the report. About one-third of the 9,272 questionable claims for 4,280 beneficiaries were from Florida. The Florida claims amounted [...]