Federal officers discovered few cases of fraud in Medicare billing practices for telehealth companies in the course of the first yr of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There have been 1,714 suppliers out of roughly 742,000 whose billing was deemed “excessive threat” for Medicare, in response to a report launched this month by the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers’ Workplace of Inspector Normal.
Suppliers’ billing practices have been thought of a excessive threat in the event that they confirmed regarding billing practices on not less than one out of seven measures, similar to billing for telehealth companies and facility charges for many visits, billing at the costliest stage every time or billing for a excessive variety of days in a yr.
The suppliers in query billed for telehealth companies for half one million beneficiaries and obtained $127.7 million in fee-for-service funds, in response to the report.
The Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers mentioned it would overview the high-risk instances.
“On condition that this report was performed outdoors of CMS’s and regulation enforcement entities’ program integrity efforts, CMS might want to rigorously overview the problems recognized to evaluate whether or not these points have already been addressed, and if not, whether or not extra CMS actions are wanted,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure wrote in a response to the report.
Telehealth exploded in recognition when the pandemic hit, and two-in-five Medicare beneficiaries, or greater than 28 million individuals, used these companies within the first yr. In that time-frame, beneficiaries used telehealth companies 88 occasions greater than the earlier yr, the report discovered.