Highlights of the 2017 OIG Work Plan

Posted by Frank Strafford on November 23, 2016 in OIG Work Plans,
 

Highlights of the 2017 OIG Work Plan

The OIG recently released their 2017 OIG Work Plan. It’s a great way to be informed of what new and ongoing reviews and activities the OIG considers a top priority for this coming year’s agenda. Here are some exclusion screening related highlights that some of you might find very interesting.


Annual Number of Exclusions

Annual Number of Exclusions

The OIG Work plan reports the number of individuals and entities on its exclusion list, and this year is no exception. Thus, in FY 2016, the OIG excluded 3,635 parties from participation in Federal healthcare programs. That number is markedly lower than the exclusions of FY 2015 (4,112), There is the possibility  that the decrease may be due to underreporting, or belated reporting, by states, such that this number reflects only the data of those states that made their details known to the OIG in a timely manner.


Criminal Investigations

Criminal Investigations

The OIG does more than exclude those who have been convicted of fraud — it investigates the criminal activity to begin with, including medical identity theft and other fraudulent schemes designed to steal Medicare dollars. Moreover, the OIG investigators have noticed an increasing number of healthcare fraud schemes, whose participants include  healthcare providers , administrative businesses  and  actual patients. Just last week it was announced that a NJ provider agreed to a 20 year OIG exclusion and a 5.25 million dollar settlement for allegations of making thousands of pelvic floor therapy fraudulent claims. Further investigation of this case led the OIG to the findings of a fraudulent billing company that was actually helping the NJ provider with his fraudulent claims. The billing company has since been excluded for the next 5 years and fined $100,000.  This sends a strong message to all organizations that bill any federal healthcare programs that those who commit healthcare fraud are not only excluded from participating in federal healthcare programs, but may face both heavy fines, long term OIG exclusions and even jail time.


Delivery System Reform Incentive Payments

Delivery System Reform Incentive Payments 

Many providers may be unaware of the federal programs that exist in order to incentivize the setup of effective compliance systems.  DSRIP are incentive payments which are paid out via Section 1115 waivers to hospitals and other healthcare providers that implement strategies and systems that help ensure better access to healthcare, more cost efficiency and better quality care to patients. In order for states to be eligible for this funding in order to distribute to the healthcare providers of their respective state, they must demonstrate sufficient accountability for allocating these funds. The incentive payments in one state totaled more than $6 billion over five years. Once the state becomes eligible each provider must adhere to specific criteria that is decided by the state.

New York State is eligible for this program and as indicated on the OMIG website. Check out this page to see what the criteria are to be eligible for these payments. One criteria is to have a proven system in place to check the LEIE exclusion screening list and other databases consistently.

Financial Reviews of Error Payments

Financial Reviews of Error Payments

One question that the OIG will attempt to answer this year is whether the CMS acted on the recommendation to target the error-prone providers to reduce payment errors. Furthermore, even if the CMS has not done so thus far, the CERT data may reveal patterns of errors where future intervention could reduce payment errors. These concerns are catching the attention of Republicans, US Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and company calling the existing system of “pay-and-chase” a premise of policing after the fact upon which error checking is based — they want a better system more along the lines of “nip the error in the bud,” and prevent the fraud before it happens. With the newly elected Republican administration, and Republican control of all chambers of government, the preventative approach is likely to gain traction.

The Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) program has been used by CMS since 2003 to establish a national error rate for Medicare’s Fee-for-Service payments, in accord with the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002. A 2010 report identified those providers who appeared to be error prone, recommending that CMS target these providers, for contributing significantly to payment errors in the CERT program for provider-based reviews. Five years later, the FY 2015 reported national error rate for Medicare Fee-for-Service payments had not declined. Indeed, the national error rate was approximately 12.1 percent — that’s improper payments estimated at a cost of $43.3 billion.

About Frank Strafford

About Frank Strafford

Related Articles

HCCA’s 2017 Compliance Institute, a Smashing ...

April 6, 2017

With close to three thousand attendants, the HCCA Compliance Institute 2017 kicked off another successful summit and reached a wider audience than we’ve ever seen before. Those numbers also highligh...

Licensure Verification

June 7, 2021

Introduction For most health care organizations, their primary purpose is to provide high quality patient care to support the best outcomes possible.  The qualifications and expertise of an or...

Medicare expands mental health access ...

March 28, 2023

A recent and exciting CMS Medicare update for both benefit recipients and healthcare practitioners is that legislation that included expansion to mental health access was signed into law on December 2...

Understanding OIG Exclusions

OIG Exclusions Screening Process

Exclusion FAQS

Quick OIG Exclusion Basics

Employing Excluded Individuals

Consequences to Employing an Excluded Individual

OIG Compliance Law

Laws and Publications on OIG Compliance

More Compliance Resources

Our Culture

We build the best, so you can perform at your best.

Trusted for Good Reason

  • ✓ Guaranteed accurate
  • ✓ Certified Secure
  • ✓ Audit Proof
  • ✓ Feature-rich reporting
  • ✓ Round the clock real-time-data
  • ✓ Processing fully automated

Security First

  • ✓ Cloud hosted
  • ✓ Encrypted data
  • ✓ Real-time backups

Trusted for Accuracy

  • ✓ Physical security
  • ✓ Restricted access
  • ✓ Single sign-on
  • ✓ Password security
  • ✓ Certified secure
  • ✓ Cross checking

HEALTHCARE ESTABLISHMENTS NATIONWIDE COUNT ON STREAMLINE VERIFY

5

60%

Average workload reduction by implementing the Streamline Verify program

5

10K

Establishments trust Streamline Verify nationwide

5

2011

Serving the healthcare industry’s unique compliance needs since 2011

5

24X

Setting standards with hourly synchronization to primary source data