In This Issue;

- Hiring or Contracting With Excluded Individuals or Entities: Checking the OIG’s Exclusion List Can Avoid Harsh Sanctions

Over the years, we have written in Shorts about the importance of checking the Office of Inspector General’s “List of Excluded Individuals and Entities” before hiring an employee (or rehiring a former employee) or contracting with any sort of vendor or supplier (services or goods) before you hire or contract with them.

- “Independent” Informal Dispute Resolution Goes Live on January 1, 2012: CMS Issues Program Memorandum to State Survey Agencies Outlining Required Elements

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ACA — also known as the health care reform law — requires that civil money penalties (CMPs) levied against them for survey deficiencies will, as of January 1, 2012, be collected and placed in “escrow” until all appeals, both formal and informal, are completed.

- ACTIVITIES PROFESSIONALS: Win a FREE Trip to Nicaragua

If you think your activities professional is the best in the world, prove it by nominating him or her to take an all-expenses-paid trip with us to Nicaragua to work with the elders in the hogares de ancionas, or “home of the ancients,” we’ve written about in Shorts for the past several years.