“Probe and Educate” Hospital Inpatient Audits Extended an Additional 3 Months

On November 12, 2013, CMS held a third open door forum (ODF) discussing the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS)/Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Final Rule (CMS-1599-F). As of November 4, 2013, the patient status probe review period that was previously applicable through December 31, 2013 has been extended through March 31, 2014. CMS has issued helpful guidance on questions and answers relating to patient status reviews, selecting hospital claims for patient status reviews, and reviewing hospital claims for patient status.

These “probe and educate” reviews will be conducted on a prepayment basis to assess whether hospitals are in compliance with the admission order requirements and 2-midnight benchmark. Because these reviews will be conducted on a prepayment basis, the MACs will deny any claims not meeting these three requirements. The initial sample probe reviews will consist of 10-25 claims per hospital with dates of admission from October 1 through December 31, 2013.

MAC review of the inpatient hospital claims will provide outreach and education about the inpatient rule and will help ensure that hospitals understand and comply with the Medicare requirements. Upon completion of the 10-25 claim reviews, if the MACs do not find any issues with the particular hospital’s claim documentation then further probes will not be conducted for that hospital (unless there are significant changes in billing patterns for admissions).

If issues are found for a claim, the MAC will send a detailed denial letter to the provider explaining why the claim was denied. If there are moderate to significant concerns with a claim, the letter will include an offer for the MAC to call the individual provider to discuss the reasons for why the non-compliant claim was denied, to answer questions, and to provide providers with education and reference materials.

If the MACs identify an individual provider as having “moderate/significant” or “major” concerns during the initial review, then they will do a second probe review of 10-25 claims with dates of admission between January 1 and March 31, 2014. At the end of this six month period, if hospitals continue to have major issues then the MACs may select an additional 100-250 claims for review.

If you have any questions regarding the “probe and educate” reviews or compliance with the Final Rule, please contact an experienced healthcare attorney at Wachler & Associates at 248-544-0888 or wapc@wachler.com.