As is customary in late fall, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services released its Fiscal Year work plan. As a reminder or preface, the work plan is the summary of investigations and focal areas the OIG plans to undertake in the upcoming fiscal year and beyond to ensure program efficiency and integrity and to identify and prevent fraud, waste and abuse (the latter is the most relevant activity). Each provider segment reimbursed by Medicare is covered, some more so than others depending on the prevailing nature of program expenditures. As of late (most recent years), the post-acute sector is targeted principally due to the outlay/expenditure growth (Medicare) for hospice, home health and skilled nursing care.
Below is the categorical highlights (not exhaustive) found within the 2015 Work Plan (the full plan can be found here ( https://oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/archives/workplan/2015/FY15-Work-Plan.pdf ;
Skilled Nursing Facilities
- Medicare Part A Billing: Scrutiny on claim accuracy and appropriateness of billed charges, particularly focused on therapy utilization and RUGupcoding. Recent False Claims Act cases withExtendicare illustrate how the OIG views Medicare payments for inappropriate utilization and for care that is clearly inadequate. This is a major risk area for providers and no SNF should discount the exposure, particularly if any of the following elements within the organization’s operations are present.
- Therapy services provided by an outside contractor. The OIG has identified previously that there exists a correlation between certain therapy agency contractors and patters of upcoding.
- Disproportionately higher (as a percentage of census/payer mix), Medicare utilization. The common threshold level is 30% or lower of total census. Higher Medicare days as a percent of overall payer mix is a red flag for the OIG or an outlier.
- Low overall Part B therapy utilization.
- Skewed RUG distribution where the majority of days are falling the highest paying therapy RUGs (particularly ultra-high with moderate to minimal ADL scores – minimum/moderate assist levels)
- Longer length of stays at higher RUG levels – minimal or infrequent Change of Therapy without corresponding Change of Conditions or vice-versa.
- Medicare Part B Billing: The converse to the point previous is enhanced focus by the OIG on over-utilization or inappropriate utilization of Part B therapy services when Part A is exhausted or unavailable. The OIG has noticed a trend for providers wary of Part A scrutiny to shift utilization to Part B. Again, the focus is on inappropriate billing patterns and utilization trends above or beyond, the historical norm.
- State Agency Survey Reviews: The OIG plans to review how frequently and how well, state survey agencies reviewed and verified, facility plans of correction for completeness and compliance. The gist: enhanced/additional federal look behind visits and desk reviews.
- Hospitalizations: The OIG intends to review the hospitalization trends of SNF patients, identifying patterns of utilization for manageable or preventable care issues. A 2011 review found that 25% of Medicare SNF patients were hospitalized in a given year and the OIG is of the opinion that a percentage (likely sizable) is preventable and potentially, indicative of quality problems at the SNF level.
Hospice
- Hospice in Assisted Living: The OIG will monitor the continued growth trend of hospice care provided in Assisted Living facilities. Part of this initiative is couched in the requirement within the ACA for the Secretary (of HHS) to reform the hospice payment system. The OIG indicates that it will gather data on hospice utilization, diagnoses, lengths of stay, etc. for residents in Assisted Living facilities. Medpac has noted that for many providers, particularly the larger national chain organizations, that hospice care in this setting is typified by longer stays and thus, monitoring is warranted.
- General Inpatient Care: OIG will continue to monitor the utilization of General Inpatient Care within the hospice benefit for appropriateness and potential abuse. As General Inpatient Care pays a higher per diem and many hospices maintain their own inpatient units, the concern on the part of OIG is misuse or abuse for payment or, to mitigate (agency) staffing shortages where the better alternative for the patient is Continuous Care.
Home Health
- Reimbursements/Payments: The OIG will continue to monitor payments made to agencies principally for accuracy. Prior investigations by the OIG identified that at least on in four claims were incorrect and potentially, fraudulent. This initiative is a continuation of ongoing concerns by the OIG of excessive fraud and or waste in the Home Health sector principally due to improper application of the Medicare benefit and lack of substantiated medical necessity and/or supported clinical documentation of appropriateness of care (e.g., therapies particularly).
LTAcHs and Inpatient Rehab Facilities
- Adverse Events: The OIG is targeting both settings for an analysis of adverse events/temporary harm circumstances to patients in the setting (falls, infections, etc.). Inpatient Rehab Facilities provide 11% of post-acute inpatient therapy services and growth over the past decade or so has been consistent and steady. Questions however have arisen regarding the actual value of such care compared to the care received in an SNF. The SNF is reimbursed substantially lower than the IRF even though many SNFs staff sufficiently to provide the same level of therapy services (up to 3 hours per day). Similar concerns have risen within the LTAcH setting as to cost vs. outcome and quality, particularly as compared other setting comparable, lower cost settings such as SNF. There continues in Washington, a generalized view that post-acute payment reform is overdue, particularly given the rapid expansion of the sector. Within the payment reform movement is the growing view that setting differentiation and thus payment differentiation at the inpatient level is no longer warranted and consolidation is required to rid the excess capacity and reward economically efficient providers that demonstrate higher quality outcomes (SNFs in particular as well as rural swing bed hospitals and to a lesser extent, home health providers and outpatient providers).