Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
PLANS, AGENCIES GET PRICE CUT ON HIPDB
Health plans and government agencies soon will get a price cut when they run a provider query through the HHS Office of Inspector General's Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank. According to a April 22 Federal Register notice, the agency is cutting the per-query fee from $5 to $4.25 to better reflect the costs of maintaining the data repository, which contains information on health care-related court judgments, criminal convictions, licensure actions and other kinds of sanctions levied against health care providers. The HIPDB is intended to deter fraud and abuse by giving certain organizations a way to identify providers who've had a troubled past. The new fee rate goes into effect July 1. While health care providers themselves don't have access to the database (access is limited to health plans and government agencies), they can do a self-query to see what the HIPDB says about them. The fee for a self-query is $10. To see the notice, go to www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a030422c.html. For more information on the HIPDB, go to http://www.npdb-hipdb.com/hipdb.html.
Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
- Home Health:
'HOME HEALTH COMPARE' SET TO GO LIVE, FLAWS AND ALL
Widespread errors with administrative data on the soon-to-be-unveiled Home Health Compare Web site will make [...] - Medicare Pass-Through:
ANEMIA DRUG DISPUTE FILLS CMS MAILBAG
Both Republicans and Democrats are criticizing the way the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [...] - Medicaid Drugs:
LEGISLATIVE OFFICE URGES FLORIDA TO DUMP PFIZER MEDICAID PROGRAM
Saying it hasn't seen solid evidence of significant savings produced by disease-management and other services [...] - Business Arrangements:
EXPANDING SERVICES THROUGH A JV? 5 RED FLAGS IN OIG'S SCOPES
If your expansion plans have led you to create a new business that subcontracts out [...] - Physicians:
FRAUD HUNT SPOOKS DOCS INTO DOWNCODING
Haunted by late-night worries about being targeted in a Medicare fraud investigation? If you're a [...] - HCA Watch:
GRASSLEY CONTINUES SCRUTINY OF HCA SETTLEMENT
Senate Finance Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has written a fourth letter regarding the government's [...] - HealthSouth Watch:
REHAB GIANT FACES CONGRESSIONAL PROBE
Imploding rehab giant HealthSouth Corp.'s woes deepened April 22, with a Congressional panel joining the [...] - Coverage:
WINS, LOSSES AND TIES IN MEDICARE PET SCAN POLICIES
Health care providers will soon be able to bill Medicare for positron emission tomography scans [...] - Self-Referral:
PROVIDERS GET BREATHING ROOM ON 'SET-IN-ADVANCE' RULE
Teaching hospitals and medical foundations bracing for a potential paperwork nightmare July 7 received a [...] - Hospitals:
NEW RULES HIT HOME FOR HOSPITAL SURVEYS
With new hospital quality rules in effect for Medicare, surveyors will be taking a different [...] - Medicare:
PROVIDERS, SUPPLIERS FACE NEW ENROLLMENT STANDARDS
A wider range of Medicare providers could be subject to site visits to verify their [...] - Fraud & Abuse:
PLANS, AGENCIES GET PRICE CUT ON HIPDB
Health plans and government agencies soon will get a price cut when they run a [...] - Fraud & Abuse:
DRUGMAKERS' FRAUD SETTLEMENTS BIGGEST EVER FOR MEDICAID
Pharmaceutical manufacturers Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline will pay the federal government, all states except Arizona, [...] - PROGRAM MEMO ROUNDUP
Hospitals that "self attest" their provider-based entities could save themselves a bundle if the Centers [...] - REGISTER WATCH
In its last-Friday-of-the-month flurry of regulations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued technical [...]
