Home Health & Hospice Week

OIG revives its call for this long-delayed unrealistic requirement.Add one more expense to your list if the OIG gets its way -- but this one could be enough to close your doors.The HHS Office of Inspector General wants the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Ser-vices to implement the surety bond requirement for home health agencies that Congress passed way back in 1997's Balanced Budget Act. CMS finalized a rule for the bond in 1998, but put the requirement on hold indefinitely after Congress protested the mandate."The surety bond requirement is an important program integrity tool that provides a sentinel effect of keeping fraudulent providers out of the program and a means for Medicare to guarantee recoup-ment of some overpayments," says the OIG in its re-port, Surety Bonds Remain an Unused Tool to Pro-tect Medicare from Home Health Overpayments (OEI-03-12-00070). The growth in both Medicare home health spending and the number [...]