Post-acute care providers’ fraud risks

Like other healthcare providers, post-acute care (PAC) providers—specifically skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home health agencies (HHAs), and hospice providers (collectively referred to in this article as “PAC providers”) —have long faced significant regulatory burdens to ensure compliance with myriad Medicare and Medicaid conditions of participation and conditions of payment (CoPs). Because physicians and nonphysician practitioners are the gatekeepers for many PAC services, PAC providers often rely on unaffiliated physicians and nonphysician practitioners to certify a patient’s eligibility for services. This is in addition to overseeing a plan of care and obtaining necessary documentation in the time frames required by the CoPs—which can be challenging. Additionally, PAC providers rely more heavily on referrals from hospitals, physicians, and other community providers than different types of acute care or specialty providers; this greater reliance on opportunities from referral relationships presents more substantial fraud, waste, and abuse concerns.

To understand the current risk areas—many of which are the same that have existed for decades—it is important to understand the history of scrutiny of these PAC providers, which is where this article begins. We then discuss current risk areas and recent government activity in those areas and, finally, where we anticipate ongoing or increased scrutiny.

This document is only available to members. Please log in or become a member.
 


Would you like to read this entire article?

If you already subscribe to this publication, just log in. If not, let us send you an email with a link that will allow you to read the entire article for free. Just complete the following form.

* required field