The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) are teaming up to present a webinar you won’t want to miss – Fraud and Abuse in Home Care and Hospice: Understanding Risk Areas; Preparing for Review.
The webinar will run from 2:00 to 3:30 PM ET on February 21, 2018.
Audits by government auditors (Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs); Medicaid Integrity Contractors (MICs); Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) and Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs), now renamed Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPICs), are on the increase. For the homecare industry, these audits have recently focused on physician certification requirement, eligibility for care, and reasonable and necessary services. For the hospice industry, the focus has been on eligibility, physician involvement and live discharges. As the focus shifts in the early part of 2018, this Webinar will provide you with up to the minute summaries of audit activity and identify new areas for scrutiny. Though home care and hospice each have distinct areas of concern, both are at high risk for the challenging scrutiny that audits bring.
This Webinar will help providers understand fraud and abuse, the audit process, steps to prevent allegations of fraud and abuse and response to audits if they occur.
“Medicare has stepped up oversight activities in hospice and home health,” says NAHC President William A. Dombi. “This program will help providers avoid compliance risks maintain the positive reputation that we have regarding compliance and zero tolerance for fraud and abuse.”
Home care and hospice legal experts will identify practices that increase the likelihood that a provider will face allegations of fraud and abuse. Lessons learned from providers that have experienced audits will be shared. Most importantly, guidance on how to prepare for additional scrutiny and audits and what actions responsible leaders should take will be discussed in detail.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe and distinguish between the various government audit programs for home care and hospice
- List audit focus areas for home care and hospice
- Identify practices that place providers at increased risk for government audits
- Delineate appropriate actions to take when fraud and abuse allegations occur
NAHC and NHPCO have assembled an all star team of experts to make this the most informative and authoritative webinar of its kind anywhere. The faculty is:
NAHC President William A. Dombi
With nearly 40 years of experience in health care law and policy, Mr. Dombi has been involved in virtually all legislative and regulatory efforts affecting home care and hospice since 1975. Mr. Dombi was lead counsel in the landmark lawsuit that reformed the Medicare home health services benefit, challenges to HMO home care cutbacks for high-tech home care patients, lawsuits against Medicaid programs for inadequate payment rates, along with current lawsuits challenging the Medicare home health face-to-face encounter rule and the Department of labor changes to the overtime rules under the Fair labor Standards Act.
NHPCO President and CEO Edo Banach
Prior to joining NHPCO, Mr. Banach was a partner in the firm of Gallagher, Evelius & Jones in Baltimore, Maryland. Previously, he served as the Deputy Director of the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Before his leadership role at CMS, he served as Associate General Counsel at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Jason Bring
A Partner at Arnall Golden Gregory, LLC, Mr Bring co-Chairs the firm’s Post-Acute Care Team and is a member of the firm’s Healthcare and Litigation Groups. Mr. Bring also serves as Chair of the Post-Acute and Long-Term Services Practice Group of the American Health Lawyers Association, the nation’s leading largest educational organization devoted to legal issues in the healthcare field. Mr. Bring also serves on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Howard J. Young
A Partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, Mr. Young leads the Health Care Practice where he provides counsel to a wide variety of health care providers, including hospices, home health agencies, hospitals, physician groups and pharmacies. He regularly advises on responses to government program integrity contractor inquiries and related appeals. Additionally, he advises on compliance program matters. From 1997 to 2002, Mr. Young was a Senior Counsel and Deputy Branch Chief with the Office of Counsel to the Inspector General, where he coordinated extensively with CMS and DOJ on the resolution of civil and criminal health care fraud matters and other program integrity matters.
