Home Health & Hospice Week

Any amount over $3 billion may sound like an enormous number in terms of Medicare billings, but that’s the amount the OIG recovered in 2015 alone. In its Semiannual Report to Congress, the OIG reported that during fiscal year 2015, the agency recorded audit receivables of $1.13 billion, another $2.22 billion in investigative recoveries and $286 million from other sources. “Our work identifies improper payments, which sometimes may be caused by fraud, but may also indicate questionable billing patterns that could lead to waste or signal other problems, such as low quality of care,” said Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson in the report. Levinson vowed to catch issues on the front end going forward, noting, “OIG endeavors to examine new programs early in their implementation to pinpoint potential issues to curb or reduce the magnitude of improper payments.” The report also highlighted home health agency fraud cases in Strike Force cities (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIV, No. 42).