HHS-OIG Flags Certain Extreme Outlier Telehealth Providers as Potentially Engaging in Fraudulent Billing During the Pandemic
HHS-OIG recently issued a report assessing Medicare program integrity risks arising from telehealth services furnished during the first year of the pandemic. Although HHS-OIG identified only 1,714 providers whose billing for telehealth services “poses a high risk to Medicare”— a relatively small percentage of the 742,000 providers who billed for telehealth services during the relevant time period—a closer review of the report (OEI-02-20-00720) reveals that HHS-OIG focused on only the most extreme outliers. Providers who took advantage of CMS telehealth billing flexibilities during the pandemic should consider assessing their own organizations for potential outliers based on HHS-OIG’s metrics.
Latest DOJ COVID Crackdown Features Another Defendant Accused of Abusing Telehealth Waivers
With its latest announcement this week of a criminal crackdown of 21 defendants for their alleged participation in various health care related fraud schemes, DOJ has underscored its commitment to aggressively pursue individuals and companies alleged to have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these actions are a collection involving alleged billing fraud arising from COVID testing; one set of defendants is alleged to have taken the data from patients seeking COVID tests and submitting bills to the federal healthcare programs for office visits that never occurred, while another set of actions involve obtaining patient samples and then billing for more expensive lab tests. Still others involve defendants alleged to have sold fake COVID vaccination cards. (more…)
DOJ Settles FCA Case Alleging Medically Unnecessary Telehealth Visits, Claws Back PPP Money
This week DOJ announced one of the first civil settlements under the FCA involving abuse of the pandemic flexibilities that the Department of Health and Human Services used to authorize broader use of telehealth during the COVID public health emergency. Physician Partners of America (“PPOA”) agreed to pay $24.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the FCA by billing for medically unnecessary telehealth visits, and by submitting claims for medically unnecessary genetic, psychological, and urine drug tests and claims tainted by violations of the Stark Law. While DOJ has previously engaged in criminal enforcement actions relating to abuse of the telehealth waiver flexibilities, as discussed further here, this case represents an expansion of telehealth enforcement scrutiny to the civil side. (more…)
