Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) recently posted new issues approved for review: The RAC for Region A, DCS Healthcare, added three RAC issues for non-medical necessity claims for providers in the District of Columbia, Maine, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. CGI, the RAC for…
The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius filed a motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court to dismiss the Virginia Attorney General’s challenge of the healthcare reform law. The suit is separate from the legal action filed in Florida that includes 20 states. The Virginia Attorney General,…
The U.S. Department (DOJ) and the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati entered into an agreement to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit with the DOJ alleging that from 1997 to 2004 Christ Hospital, a former member of the Health Alliance, scheduled cardiologists at a diagnostic unit based on the amount…
On May 14, 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an MLN Matters article explaining Change Request (CR) 6954. CR 6954 adds Section 3.14 to the Medicare Program Integrity Manual. This section clarifies language regarding clinical review judgments. It requires Medicare claim review contractors to instruct their…
Last month the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published an MLN Matters Article regarding changes to remittance advice coding. The article is directed towards Home Health Agencies that submit claims to a Regional Home Health Intermediary (RHHI) or to the Home Health Medicare Administrative Contractor (HH MAC –…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued Change Request (CR) 6698 to clarify how Medicare claim review contractors review claims and medical documentation submitted by providers. This clarification included an outline of new rules for signatures and added language for e-prescribing. The previous language in the Program Integrity…
Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss a qui tam action against it. The court held that the relator failed to state a claim with the required particularity. Robert Lauricia filed the qui tam action under the False…
Section 6401 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) grants the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (the “Secretary”) the authority to require health care providers to adopt compliance programs as a condition of participation in the Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP programs. Before the PPACA,…
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new transmittal to address concerns regarding the reporting of recoupment for overpayment on the remittance advice (RA). During the RAC demonstration project providers would receive an RA, which is a notice of payments and adjustments sent by Medicare contractors to…
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a request for information (RFI) on the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act’s expansion of an individual’s right to receive an accounting of disclosures under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act…