Home Health & Hospice Week

If you don't communicate clearly with your patients, you may find yourself reported for fraud. In a new message to providers, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services touts its Medicare fraud prevention program that recovered $4 billion last year from "people who attempted to defraud seniors and taxpayers." CMS asks providers to pass on its CMS Fraud Prevention Toolkit to patients, so they can report "suspected fraud."

"The first and best line of defense against fraud remains the health care consumer," CMS stresses. The toolkit is online at www.cms.gov/Partnerships/04_FraudPreventionToolkit.asp.