Home Health & Hospice Week

You'll have 60 days to report and return self-identified Medicare overpayments, if a new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed rule becomes final. "Before the Affordable Care Act, providers did not face an explicit deadline for returning taxpayers' money," CMS notes in a release. "Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there will be a specific timeframe by which overpayments must be reported returned."

If finalized, providers could face big financial penalties if they fail to follow the rule. "Any failure to report and return the overpayment within the applicable time frame could be a violation of the False Claims Act," CMS says.

Or they could face worse. "Providers also could be ... excluded from participating in federal healthcare programs for failure to report and return an overpayment," CMS says.

What qualifies? "A Medicare overpayment means any funds that a person receives or retains under Medicare to which the person is not entitled," CMS says. Examples include payment for excluded or medically unnecessary services; duplicate submissions; and payment to the incorrect payee.

The proposed rule is in the Feb. 16 Federal Register at http://www.FederalRegister.gov/a/2012-03642. Comments on the rule are due by April 16.