The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published favorable Advisory Opinion No. 23-15 on January 3, which concluded that a consultant’s proposal to provide gift cards to existing physician practice customers in exchange for referring other physician practices to the vendor would not implicate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS).
Health Law Scan
Legal Insights and Perspectives for the Healthcare Industry
The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) posted on October 25, 2023 Advisory Opinion No. 23-08, in which OIG rejected a proposed arrangement from a cochlear implant device manufacturer (the requestor) that would provide a free hearing aid to certain qualified patients who received a cochlear implant.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on June 8, 2023 that Steven King, a compliance executive of pharmacy holding company A1C Holdings LLC, was convicted of defrauding Medicare out of more than $50 million in a scheme involving dispensing medically unnecessary lidocaine and diabetic testing materials.
The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced on June 15, 2023 that it plans to initiate a new audit of Medicare payments for hospice general inpatient (GIP) services, focused on hospice GIP services furnished to Medicare beneficiaries who were discharged directly to hospice GIP care from an acute hospital stay.
On October 3, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a report titled “UPICs Hold Promise to Enhance Program Integrity Across Medicare and Medicaid, But Challenges Remain.” This report detailed OIG’s findings related to the efficacy of the Unified Program Integrity Contractor (UPIC) program.
Perhaps signaling the increasing likelihood of a permanent telehealth solution for the Medicare program, the Office of Inspector General for the US Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) has established a “Featured Topics” resource page on its website dedicated to telehealth and OIG’s work in evaluating telehealth policies. This telehealth resource page serves as a compendium for all the reports OIG has completed or plans to undertake related to telehealth and virtual care technologies, including several audits and evaluations currently on OIG's 2022 work plan. In addition, the resource page provides a helpful overview of the manner in which telehealth fits into the larger Medicare regulatory framework.
Last month, we had an engaging Fast Break session covering the growing importance of risk adjustment in various health insurance programs and novel government theories of liability associated with risk adjustment reporting. Morgan Lewis associates Tesch Leigh West and Michelle M. Arra described the fundamental processes regarding risk adjustment and highlighted recent audit and enforcement trends in this area.
The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently announced its Office of Audit Services plans to conduct a nationwide review of hospice eligibility, focusing on those Medicare hospice beneficiaries who haven't had an inpatient hospital stay or an ER visit in certain periods prior to their start of hospice care.
In the complex world of Medicare reimbursement, there are a multitude of payment formulae, mathematical adjustments, and reimbursement calculations that translate congressional policy into operational payments for hospital providers. But sometimes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) doesn’t get the math right. Recently, the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that academic medical centers have been subject to one such calculation error that implicates the amount such teaching hospitals receive as payment in support of direct graduate medical education (GME). Milton S. Hershey Med. Ctr. v. Xavier Becerra, Civ. Action No. 19-2680 (May 17, 2021). Based on the court’s reasoning, teaching hospitals operating above their full-time equivalent (FTE) resident cap may have been systematically underpaid as a result of the regulatory payment formula for determining the weighted FTE amount of residents used to calculate the GME payment. Other hospitals have recently followed Hershey Medical into the DC District Court seeking similar decisions.
Members of our healthcare team recently published a LawFlash highlighting the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). ARPA provides $1.9 trillion in relief funding to address the COVID-19 pandemic, support the US economy, and provide relief for impacted Americans, and includes provisions specifically affecting healthcare providers remaining on the frontlines.