Home Health & Hospice Week

Don’t forget the Round 4 deadline is Oct. 26.

With billions of dollars up for grabs, it’s no surprise that Provider Relief Funds have drawn out fraudsters. Now at least some of them are getting caught in the act.

The latest example: Oasis Healthcare Inc. and Quizena Walker in Stafford, Texas, have agreed to pay more than $15,000 to the HHS Office of Inspector General to settle charges of PRF fraud. In May 2020, Walker attested in the HHS PRF Portal that Oasis was eligible to receive a PRF payment “because, among other things, Oasis’s Medicare billing privileges had not been revoked and it had not been terminated from participating in Medicare,” the OIG says in a notice on its Civil Money Penalty enforcement webpage. However, Oasis’s Medicare billing privileges actually were revoked and its participation in Medicare had been terminated, the OIG says.

Meanwhile, for legitimate providers who have not been terminated, the deadline to apply for the latest PRF Round 4 funds is Oct. 26. HHS is distributing $25.5 billion in Round 4 (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXX, No. 33).

Two more application technical assistance webinars from the Health Resources & Services Administration remain on Oct. 13 and Oct. 21. Links to register are at https://www.hrsa.gov/provider-relief/future-payments.