Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Find out what the OIG views as signs of illegal "swapping" arrangements. When reports of pharma kickbacks involving nursing homes hit the media, you know it's time for your facility to review how it's doing business with pharmacy and other ancillary providers. Background: Omnicare forked over $98 million to the government to resolve allegations that the company engaged in numerous kickback schemes. These included accusations that the  ompany solicited and accepted kickbacks from Johnson & Johnson for recommending doctors prescribe Risperdal to nursing home patients. The feds also alleged that Omnicare "regularly paid kickbacks to nursing homes" in the form of consultant pharmacist services that were less than the provider's costs and fair market value, according to a DOJ release. Omnicare's goal, claims the DOJ was to "induce nursing homes to refer their patients to Omnicare for pharmacy services" (The complete report is posted online at:  http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/November/09-civ-186.html). A separate [...]