[author: Eugene Ngai]

The Office of Inspector General has published its Work Plan for the 2013 Fiscal Year. This provides health care industry players with an insight into the activities that OIG plans to initiate or continue with respect to federal health care programs and operations in the upcoming fiscal year. Some new areas that OIG plans on investigating include:

• the extent to which hospitals acquire ASCs and convert them to hospital outpatient departments and the effect of such acquisitions on Medicare payments;
• the extent to which onsite visits occur as part of the Medicare enrollment or reenrollment process and improper use of commercial mailbox addresses; and
• review of Medicare claims data to identify questionable billing for ophthalmological services and electrodiagnostic testing.

The full document can be found at the OIG’s website and is attached here. Sheppard Mullin will continue to review the Work Plan and post items of interest to this blog.