The CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Rules
Podcast — Drug Pricing: How Are Payers Responding to the IRA?
Findings from Gibbins’ Annual Healthcare Bankruptcy Report
A Fond Farewell: Musings on the End of the Medicare Advantage Hospice Carve-In Demonstration
Video: Braidwood v. Becerra – Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Coverage Provision – Thought Leaders in Health Law
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Transparency and the Open Payments Program
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 173: Improving rural health care with Dr. Kevin Bennett, the Director of the Research Center for Transforming Health and the
Counsel That Cares - The Private Payer's Perspective on Value-Based Care
Podcast: Health Equity – Behind the Buzzwords – Diagnosing Health Care
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Behind the Curtain: Enhanced Provider Enrollment Oversight
Survey Woes: CMS Ramps Up Hospice Survey Program and Consequences
Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What Now? – Diagnosing Health Care Podcast
A Glimpse Into the Other Side: Understanding the Perspective of Government Enforcers
I Understood There Would Be No Math: Audits, Extrapolations, and a New Set of Rules
Podcast: Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What’s Next? - Diagnosing Health Care
Quick Takeaways From the 2024 Proposed Hospice Wage Index Rule
In the proposed CY 2025 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) published in the Federal Register on July 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is soliciting comments on a proposal to revise the Medicare Claims...more
The major calendar year proposed regs are now out, with thousands of pages of text to digest. Since a plethora of issues are embedded in these regs, including the Calendar Year (CY) 2025 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) and the...more
Split (or shared) visits—the current term used by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—allow non-physician practitioners (NPPs) and physicians who work for the same employer/entity to share patient visits on the...more
On November 29, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the 2024 annual update to the designated health services (DHS) Code List. This annual update includes important changes for Medicare providers...more
In recent years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has expanded payment for remote monitoring services in an effort to pay for non-face-to-face services that improve care coordination for Medicare...more
On November 2, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized new policies related to remote physiologic monitoring (RPM) and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) services reimbursed under the Medicare...more
On September 20, 2023, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury (the Departments) announced the Federal Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) Process Administrative Fee and Certified IDR Entity Fee...more
On January 18, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Memorandum to all state survey agency directors addressing erroneous schizophrenia coding and increased transparency of Nursing Home Care...more
OIG issued a report last week examining alleged billing irregularities relating to COVID-19 tests (the Report). The Report explains that in response to increased Medicare Part B spending on COVID-19 tests in 2020, OIG...more
On December 1, 2022, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) Health Care Subgroup published a report about the use of telehealth in selected health care programs across six federal agencies during the first year...more
Recently, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) for the Department of Health and Human Services published its Report on Medicare Telehealth Services During the First Year of the Pandemic: Program Integrity Risks...more
On September 2, 2022, OIG published a report of its findings summarizing its investigation into whether providers appropriately billed for Medicare beneficiaries’ telehealth services. This report analyzed data from the...more
On July 7, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed five new changes to Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) services under the Medicare program. The changes, part of the proposed 2023 Medicare...more
Targeted Probe and Educate (TPE) audits have recently become a common tool used by both law enforcement and private insurers in the Medicare program. While they focus on educating Medicare providers about proper billing...more
For the last few years, we have been closely monitoring and reporting on COVID-19 related fraud enforcement efforts by federal agencies. We detailed those findings in our Health Care Enforcement 2020 Year in Review & 2021...more
Physician consolidation continued on a robust pace this past year, despite, or maybe because of, the Pandemic. Physician-owned orthopedic practices appear to be no exception to this trend. Interestingly, orthopedic...more
A pair of recent reports issued by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) and Cotiviti, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) Recovery Audit Contractor (“RAC”), indicate a resumed...more
...On July 13, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an advance copy of the calendar year (CY) 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed payment rule, to be published on July 23, 2021....more
...The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed permanent Medicare coverage of audio-only mental health telehealth services. Currently, Medicare covers audio-only telehealth under temporary waivers that...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a new category of digital health services—Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM)—to complement the existing suite of Remote Physiological Monitoring (RPM) codes...more
Health plans are using both new and old methods to deny healthcare providers’ claims, all of which are legally and factually unsupportable. These tactics have repeatedly been rejected by arbitrators in scores of arbitrations,...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 30, no. 22 (June 14, 2021) - A Colorado radiation therapy provider has agreed to pay $3.569 million in a civil monetary penalty settlement with the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG). ...more
Our Virtual Regional Healthcare Compliance Conferences provide updates on the latest news in regulatory requirement, compliance enforcement, and strategies to develop effective compliance programs. Watch, listen, and ask...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 30, no. 11 (March 22, 2021) - University Medical Center of Southern Nevada has agreed to pay $128,820 in a civil monetary penalty settlement that stemmed from a self-disclosure. According to...more
Many hospitals, physician groups, or other providers compensate employed or contracted practitioners based on the work relative value units (“wRVUs”) they generate, e.g., a physician may be paid $x per wRVU performed....more