Routine Waiver of Patient Financial Responsibility – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

By: Michael Silverman

While not a ‘classic’ kickback – such as the scenario of a practitioner receiving remuneration in exchange for a prescription or referral of healthcare business – the routine waiver of patient financial responsibly by a healthcare provider ALSO constitutes healthcare fraud, even for commercially insured patients!

Unfortunately, such a serious violation does not readily come to mind for many of those operating in the healthcare space, but its relatively straightforward once you think about it. In essence, a financial incentive is being provided to the patient to utilize the services of a certain healthcare provider by virtue of that individual not being subjected to out-of-pocket expense they normally would be subjected to if they were to utilize another similarly situated provider.Continue reading

Copay Waiver Questions: OIG Opines that Charities Allowed to Help with Patients’ Insurance Obligations

financial hardshipBy: Jacqueline Bain

In the healthcare business, giving a patient a break on a health insurance copay is often viewed as suspicious. The reasoning for the suspicion is that the financial incentive may give one provider a competitive advantage over another, or persuade a patient to seek services that might not be medically necessary.  Moreover, any person who interferes with a patient’s obligations under his/her health insurance contract may be viewed as tortuously interfering with that contract. However, in an advisory opinion issued on December 28, 2016, the OIG opined that, in certain instances, a non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization could provide financial assistance with an individual’s co-payment, health insurance premiums and insurance deductibles when a patient exhibits a financial need.

The party requesting the advisory opinion was a non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization that did not provide any healthcare services and served one specified disease. The non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization is governed by an independent board of directors with no direct or indirect link to any donor. Donors to the non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization may be referral sources or persons in a position to financially gain from increased usage of their services, but may not earmark funds and or have any control over where their donation is directed.Continue reading

No Medicare = No Feds… Not!

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By: Jeff Cohen

In the “good old days” (in healthcare, that means more than a week ago), it was understood that if a client didn’t accept any state or federal healthcare program dollars (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, CHAMPUS, TriCare, Supp Plans), they would not expect to get a “knock on the door” from any federal regulatory authority.  No federal or state healthcare program dollars used to mean the client would only tend to hear from state regulators or commercial payors.  Those days are done!

Federal law enforcement is increasingly pursuing alleged criminal wrongdoing in the “non-government” healthcare space.  One of their favorite weapons is 18 U.S.C. 1347, the Federal Healthcare Fraud Statute, which gives federal law enforcement broad enforcement authority with respect to suspected wrongdoing involving interactions between healthcare providers and commercial insurers.Continue reading

Collect Now…or Pay Later

bonus calculationBy: Karina P. Gonzalez

Though it can be tempting to offer help to patients in this era of sky high healthcare costs, out-of-network physicians must remember that they should not only be collecting copayments and deductibles from their patients at the time of service and before they leave the office, but also that collecting these payments is their obligation. For physicians and other providers who engage in the practice of failing to collect payments there is a significant legal exposure under federal and state laws including civil litigation brought by commercial health plans, managed care organizations and medical benefit managers regarding routine waiver of these payments.Continue reading