Increased Physician Exposure Under the False Claims Act

Increased Physician Exposure
Under the False Claims Act

This is a guest piece by my friend Matt Weber, an expert health Care Attorney that helps protect doctors through out the Western U.S. with the law firm of Holland & Hart.

The Federal Goverment is cracking down on Medicare (and other provider) billing errors and lumping those with errors in the same boat with criminals and those commiting intentional fraud. Matt has provided some simple steps that will allow your practice to spot and fix these issues in a proactive, time and cost efficient manner, rather than at the point of a gun and at considerable disruption, heartache and expense.

Yours, Ike



By Matthew G. Weber, Esq., Holland & Hart LLP, Denver

The HHS Office of Inspector General reported healthcare fraud, waste and abuse savings and recoveries of nearly $21 billion last year. In addition, Congress enacted the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 (FERA).

FERA dramatically increases funding for enforcement activity and also amends the False Claims Act (FCA) to create additional risk areas for physicians and medical practice groups. Now more than ever, your practice needs a solid compliance program to avoid costly investigations and penalties.

Physicians immediately can reduce this exposure by enhancing their ability to:

•Promptly return overpayments,
•Correctly bill government contractors such as Medicaid Managed Care Organizations and Medicare Advantage plans, and
•Protect non-employee agents and contractors from retaliation for good faith attempts to stop FCA violations, including whistleblowing activities.

Under FERA, it’s now a FCA violation to improperly retain an overpayment even if the overpayment is not the result of the submission of a fraudulent claim. In addition, a claim that is fraudulent can violate the FCA even if it is never “presented” directly to the government for payment. It’s enough if the claim is submitted to a federal contractor such as a Medicaid or Medicare managed care plan. It’s also enough if an “under arrangements” provider submits a false claim to a hospital that receives DRG Medicare payments.

That means that plans and hospitals will be monitoring billing by their providers like never before. At the same time, anti-retaliation protection has been extended to agents and contractors, so physicians must guard against actions during billing disputes that could be misconstrued as retaliation against those plans and hospitals.

What can you do right now to protect your practice? For starters:

• Implement a system for tracking and promptly returning overpayments,
• Step up monitoring and audits to ensure appropriate claims, and
• Revise your anti-retaliation policy to protect agents and contractors, and train your staff so they don’t inadvertently create the basis for such a claim during a billing dispute.

For more information or a personal review, please contact Matt Weber in Holland & Hart’s Denver office at 303-395-8565, mweber@hollandhart.com or through his LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewweber