Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

COMPLIANCE:

Give Your Input On Kickback Regs

Published on Sun Dec 19, 2004

It's that time of year again - to voice your ideas on anti-kickback safe harbors and new special fraud alerts.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the HHS of Office of Inspector General annually solicits proposals for developing new and modifying existing provisions. The OIG will consider a number of factors in reviewing proposals, including the impact on:

access to health care services;

quality of services;

patient freedom of choice and competition among health care providers;

the cost to federal health care programs;

potential over-utilization of the health care services; and

the ability of health care facilities to provide services in medically underserved areas.

Comments must be received by Feb. 8, 2005.

To read the notice in the Dec. 10 Federal Register, go to www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a041210c.html.

Lesson Learned: Proposals submitted to the OIG could facilitate better policies.

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