Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Take a lesson from this non-profit hospice.You need to go the extra mile to keep your vendor transactions transparent since negative perception can bring unwanted attention from enforcement authorities.In a June 23 article, the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper takes the nonprofit Hospice of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Ky. to task for spending about $1.8 million over five years on business deals with companies of their board members or their spouses.For example: The hospice paid about a half million dollars for legal services from a firm that had two attorneys on the board; nearly $900,000 for insurance from a firm that had two employees on the board; nearly $400,000 for printing from a firm owned by the chief clinical officer's husband; more than $22,500 for heating and air conditioning from the CFO's husband; and more than $28,500 to the Herald-Leader while its editor sat on the board, the newspaper reports.Deals with board [...]