The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health is seeking comments on a draft bill, the Protecting Integrity in Medicare Act of 2014, that is "aimed at combating fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare program." The bill covers a range of Medicare and Medicaid policies, from establishing new alternative sanctions for technical physician self-referral violations to providing more flexibility in meeting durable medical equipment (DME) documentation requirements. Among other things, the bill would:
- Establish an alternative fixed financial penalty for individuals and entities that voluntarily disclose a technical Stark violation (e.g., an arrangement that is not in writing or that is not signed by one or more parties) through the Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol; the per-arrangement penalty would be capped at $5,000 if submitted within the year of the noncompliance and $10,000 thereafter;
- Require a study on how to establish a permanent physician-hospital gainsharing program;
- Expand the professionals who can document DME face-to-face encounters beyond physicians to align with the professionals who can furnish such encounters;
- Establish claims processing edits to prevent Medicare payments for incarcerated, unlawfully present, and deceased individuals;
- Require Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) to establish improper payment outreach and education programs, and modify how MACs prioritize efforts to reduce improper payment or error rates;
- Allow Medicaid fraud control units to investigate abuse and neglect in home and community based facilities;
- Provide the HHS OIG with up to 1.5% of all amounts collected from Medicare false claim and fraud cases;
- Give the Secretary greater flexibility to protect Medicaid from fraud, waste, and abuse;
- Improve incentives for individuals to report Medicare fraud and abuse under the Senior Medicare Patrol;
- Require valid prescriber National Provider Identifiers to be included on pharmacy claims;
- Revise the process for renewing MAC contracts;
- Create a high-risk beneficiary drug management program under the supervision of a Part D plan sponsor;
- Require the Secretary to issue guidance on the application of the "Common Rule" to clinical data registries;
- Revoke eligibility for Medicare benefits for providers convicted of defrauding the Medicare program under certain circumstances;
- Require home health agencies to obtain a surety bond in the amount of at least $50,000 as a condition of Medicare participation;
- Require prior authorization (PA) for certain chiropractic visits, blepharoplasty, and browplasty surgeries and expand a PA demonstration for non-emergent ambulance services;
- Require Social Security numbers to be removed from beneficiary Medicare cards; and
- Require the Secretary to include vacuum erection systems in the DME competitive bidding program by 2016.
Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) will accept comments on the discussion draft until September 1, 2014.
This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.
We operate a free-to-view policy, asking only that you register in order to read all of our content. Please login or register to view the rest of this article.