On August 12, 2024, OIG announced the results of an audit of payments made to hospitals for inpatient claims with the Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Groups (MS-DRGs) that require ninety-six hours of consecutive...more
CMS estimates that between 2017 and 2021, Medicare Part A improperly paid $23.9 billion for inpatient hospital stays, with $7.8 billion attributable to short stays that did not qualify for Medicare Part A. On June 13, 2024,...more
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued two identical favorable OIG Advisory Opinions, concluding that, although the proposed arrangement (“Proposed Arrangement”) between a Medicare Supplement insurer (“MediGap...more
Compliance Today (March 2021) - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has provided the following compliance notice: “In a recent report, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that Medicare made...more
A recent report issued by OIG finding an Indiana community hospital owed over $22 million in extrapolated overpayments carries some important lessons for hospitals audited under OIG’s hospital compliance program. As described...more
Acute care hospitals that provide Medicare outpatient services to inpatients of other hospitals should be billing and collecting payment from the other inpatient hospitals and not from Medicare....more
In a report released on June 17, 2016, OIG renewed its call for CMS to either eliminate the provider-based designation, which allows facilities owned by and integrated with a hospital to bill Medicare as a hospital outpatient...more
In its Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2012, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would begin reviews of Medicare payments to hospitals to determine compliance...more
The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) recently defended its practices pertaining to hospital compliance reviews in a published response to a letter from the American Hospital...more
On August 25, 2014, the OIG released an advisory opinion declining to impose civil monetary penalties on a Medicare Supplemental Health Insurance – or Medigap – insurer that planned to discount inpatient hospital deductibles...more
Last Monday the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of Health & Human Services posted an advisory opinion (No. 14-07) allowing a Medigap insurance company to strike a deal with hospitals for discounts—even waivers—of the...more
On May 28, 2014, OIG released a report asserting that over $19 million in inappropriate payments were made to hospitals for inpatient claims subject to the post-acute care transfer policy. These overpayments were the result...more