Back after a week of vacation (sort of) and then a week of scramble to catch up, here’s the latest that I am watching and that I find trending from readers and clients.
Medicaid and Health Care Reform: Oddly, this has been a Medicaid week for me on a number of fronts. The Supreme Court decision that caught most policy folk off-guard regarding the constitutionality of the PPACA “mandate” provision included a delightful twist on the implementation of the Medicaid expansion provisions within the Act. Effectively, the Supreme Court said that the Federal government has no authority to force states to implement Medicaid expansion via the threat of funding cuts. The net result is that states now have the option to determine whether they expand coverage in accordance with the PPACA or not. Just this week, we began to get a glimpse of how this nuance from the Supreme Court might play out in various state capitols.
The crux of the debate erupting in states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio and Arizona (others likely within the next months) is whether abdication from Medicaid expansion is a good idea given the provisions within the Act (PPACA) which provide full federal funding for the expansion for the first three years and then a triturated level of funding (though still higher than current FMAP funding) for succeeding years. Estimates suggest that the additional funding for Medicaid expansion will cost the Federal government $1 trillion over the ten-year period, commencing with the start of expansion. To the point: States such as those mentioned above are justifiably leery that the Federal government may not have the fiscal capability of sustaining the expanded funding and of course, the added unfunded cost that states that adopt expansion will occur as the full funding pledge devolves after the third year. Present Medicaid deficits expanded dramatically in recent months as a result of the sunset of the enhanced FMAP provided under the ARRA (Stimulus). States like Kansas and Kentucky have moved away from fee-for-service Medicaid to a managed, privately insured option in order to control and hopefully, reduce their Medicaid deficits.
Personally, I think this issue is going to loom large this fall as clearly, states governed by Republicans are setting-up a Medicaid expansion “boycott” for various political and policy reasons. DHHS Secretary Sebilius warned this week that while not participating in expansion is an option, cutting or constraining eligibility, including the expanded eligibility provided under the Act would not be permitted. DHHS’ take is that states don’t have to provide expanded insurance coverage as provided in the Act but the eligibility for Medicaid coverage would expand regardless – a potential odd mix of “I’m eligible but not in this state” kind of equation.
Psychoactive Medications and Nursing Homes: Topically, this issue is like a song I hear on the radio and then, can’t get the tune out of my head. This week, the DHHS OIG issues a report based on a review of assessments and documentation (sample) of nursing home residents medicated with psychoactive drugs and states that fully 99% of the assessments did not support the clinical use of a medication or category of medications that are by definition, psychoactive. Over and over again in some policy discussion or report, the issue of misuse of antipsychotics/psychoactive medications in nursing homes pops up. The Senate sought to attach an Informed Consent provision on a bill that would require further substantiation and discussion prior to the use of psychoactive drugs. Earlier, DHHS/CMS sought to create a requirement via rule making separating dispensing pharmacy duties from consulting pharmacy duties, under the guise that when the two are connected, inappropriate psychoactive medication issues proliferate (nonsensical but still, another measure designed to curtail inappropriate drug use in nursing homes).
Given how frequently this issue continues to arise, I’m watching for some sort of enhanced regulatory scrutiny and enforcement action to come forth. The Federal Conditions of Participation require that psychoactive medications not be used inappropriately and for restraint purposes, limiting to use to true, clinically justified mental illness. I know, and so does CMS, that all too often in all too many facilities, this is not the case and clearly, the documentation does not exist to support the medications used. Generally, when issues repeat in multiple modalities, something is brewing. For SNFs, get on this or trust me, the surveyors will soon get on you.
Medicare Claim Scrutiny for SNFs: Over the last six months, I have lost track of how many times I have warned providers about this; focused reviews of Medicare rehab claims. This enhanced contractor focused activity is based on two CMS conclusions. First, there is program fraud occurring, particularly focused on SNFs that continue to ramp-up therapy claims seeking higher reimbursements. Second, CMS is looking at RUG refinement and rebasing. Here’s the take-away and this advice hasn’t changed. SNFs need to carefully monitor their RUG distributions and particularly, their therapy contractors if they are using one. Additionally, get current MDS training and certifications in-place for your MDS Coordinator and any other clinical staff integrated in the MDS/Medicare reimbursement process. Use an external auditor to review your claims on a periodic basis to detect billing and coding abnormalities. Failure to minimally take these actions means a significant risk area is open. What I have seen to date in terms of probes and audits is nasty and in virtually every case, deserved by the SNF.
Fall Out Issues of the Week:The following are issues/trends that I’ve watched this past week that are worth briefly noting.
- Wellcare Medicaid Fraud Qui Tam settlement across nine states. Wellcare is one the big players in Medicaid managed care and it will be interesting to see how the news of the settlement impacts their viability in their existing states and in states where they are bidding for additional managed Medicaid contracts.
- The Wellpoint acquisition of Amerigroup also is interesting. Amerigroup was continuing to push for managed Medicaid contracts in various states and Wellpoint clearly interested in market share in this Medicaid environment, took a moderate sized competitor out of the mix.
- In an above comment I noted how scrutiny of SNF Medicare claims is on the rise. The source of this anti-fraud activity is private contractors called ZPICs or Zone Program Integrity Contractors. These entities are specifically engaged by CMS to detect Medicare claim fraud. In a recent study released by OIG on ZPICs, it was noted that many of the contractors had conflicts of interest which could question their impartiality. I find this fascinating as in typical fashion, the government uses a methodology to combat fraud whereby its own program is far from impartial or clean.