Home Health & Hospice Week

Citing a "period of intense activity," Inspector General Daniel Levinson offered his Semiannual Report to Congress on June 1, unveiling the news that the HHS Office of Inspector General collected $3.4 billion between October 2010 and March 2011, with $222 million of that coming from audit recoveries alone.

The OIG brought in the other $3.2 billion from 349 criminal and 197 civil actions that took place over the same time period, which left 883 individuals and entities excluded from participating in federal health care programs, the OIG says.

For once, the semiannual report is relatively free of Medicare home health agency topics. The OIG highlights a fraud case against RN and HHA owner Christopher Collins in Michigan that involved fraudulent therapy billing and kickbacks to patients (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XX, No. 23, p. 184). But otherwise the only HHA-related issues the report focuses on are problems in the Medicaid personal care services sector.

Hospices receive a pass this time as well.

To read the entire Semiannual Report, go to http://oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/semiannual/index.asp.