Eli's Hospice Insider

If nursing homes bill Medicare, Medicaid, or residents for medications that your hospice should be covering,watch out. Experts predict double billing in this area of care will draw increasing scrutiny from both Medicare and Medicaid auditors.

"In some cases, hospice may be paying the nursing home, but if bookkeeping doesn't track it, there could be double billing on the nursing home's part," adds attorney Robert W. Markette Jr., CHC, with Gilliland & Markette LLP in Indianapolis.

Solution: Nursing facilities and hospices should have audits in place to make sure improper billing for medications doesn't happen inadvertently,counsels Sanders. "Most facilities have become really good at checking for consolidated billing issues," she notes, "but they don't necessarily have hospice pharmaceutical billing on their radar screen." The issue is similar to consolidated billing,however, she adds. You have to make sure "the right entity is being billed and paying for the right services."