In July, we blogged about the major Stark Law provisions in the 2016 Proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (the “Proposed Rule“). On October 29, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS“) released the final 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (the “Final Rule“) (available here), with few changes between…
A top priority of the Department of Justice (DOJ) is battling corporate fraud and now the focus is on holding the individuals who carry out the wrongdoing accountable. The DOJ released a memorandum this month setting forth six key steps that should be taken by federal law enforcement agents in…
On October 21, 2015, President Obama announced new initiatives to fight the nation’s opioid abuse epidemic. The President discussed several plans for doing so, such as: expanding access to drug treatment, increasing the number of physicians who can prescribe a drug used to treat opiate addiction, doubling the number of…
In the last few weeks, we have seen a flurry of activity in Zone Program Integrity Contractor (“ZPIC”) audits for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”). Recently, many providers – and home health agencies, in particular – have received ZPIC audit notifications from NCI, Inc. (“NCI”) In April…
On July 15, 2015, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida announced that it settled False Claims Act allegations against Blanding Health Mart Pharmacy for more than $8 million. Blanding Health Mart Pharmacy is a compounding pharmacy based in Jacksonville, Florida. The settlement stems from allegations that…
On July 29, 2015 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced that it is extending the temporary moratoria on the enrollment of new home health agencies, subunits, and branch locations (“HHA”) and part B ambulance suppliers for an additional six months. Section 6401(a) of the Affordable Care Act…
The government does not like Physician-Owned Hospitals (“POH”). The government also does not like Physician-Owned Distributors (“POD”). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) have taken several steps recently to crack down on what it views as abusive PODs and POHs. In…
In June, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued two new reports on Medicare Part D titled: Ensuring the Integrity of Medicare Part D (available here) and Questionable Billing and Geographic Hotspots Point to Potential Fraud and Abuse in Medicare Part D (available here). In the Ensuring the Integrity of…
On August 6, 2015, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued Advisory Opinion No. 15-12 (available here) regarding a home health provider (the “Requester”) offering free introductory visits to patients who have chosen it for home health care. The OIG concluded that this arrangement does not violate the federal Anti-Kickback…
On July 8, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule containing major provisions relating to the Physician Self-Referral Law (i.e., the Stark Law) and its exceptions. CMS states that the purpose of the Stark proposals is: “to accommodate delivery and payment system reform, to…