Home Health & Hospice Week

you think paying an online platform to list your agency wouldn’t pass the OIG’s sniff test, you’re not wrong. But the feds have given it the green light anyway.

In an advisory opinion posted Dec. 16, the HHS Office of Inspector General contemplates the potential compliance problems of an operator of an online platform “on which patients seeking home-based health care services … could search for providers of home-based health care services,” according to the opinion. The platform operator would charge providers, including home health agencies, a fee to be listed.

Providers listed on the website would be charged a flat monthly fee plus a per-click fee, the potential operator specifies. The platform would allow users to contact listed providers by clicking a hyperlink or a contact button.

“The Proposed Arrangement would implicate the Federal anti-kickback statute in two ways,” the OIG decides. “First, Enrolled Providers would pay Requestor on a per-click basis to recommend them, and by extension, their items and services, some of which may be reimbursable by a Federal health care program, by listing them on the Platform in response to User searches for which they meet the search criteria. Second, Requestor would provide remuneration to Users in the form of free use of the Platform, and Requestor’s provision of this remuneration to Users could be intended to induce Users to refer themselves to Enrolled Providers for the provision of items and services that are reimbursable by a Federal health care program,” the opinion says.

However, “we conclude that the Proposed Arrangement would present a minimal risk of fraud and abuse under the Federal anti-kickback statute,” the OIG concludes. The agency lists a number of reasons, including that the fees charged don’t vary and fees paid don’t affect how providers would appear in the listing.

The 11-page opinion is at https://oig.hhs.gov/documents/advisory-opinions/1013/AO-21-20.pdf.