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Office of Inspector General Cautions Physicians Who Reassign Their Medicare Benefits

Posted on February 8, 2012 in Long-Term Care, Home Health & Hospice

Written by: Brian D. Jent

On February 8, 2012, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services issued an Alert cautioning physicians who reassign their Medicare benefits. The Alert included precautions to physicians to perform appropriate due diligence of the entities to which they reassign their benefits.

The OIG also alerted physicians to utilize sufficient caution when reassigning benefits to an entity for which the physician is serving as the medical director. Physicians should be aware of their right to review any claims submitted to the Medicare program via their reassigned Medicare billing privileges. According to the Alert, a recent failure by physicians to monitor such claims resulted in unqualified individuals acting as physical therapy “technicians” resulting in inappropriate Medicare claims. The failure of these physicians to monitor claims submitted via reassignment resulted in the OIG determining the physicians were an integral part of the billing scheme.

A copy of the OIG Alert is available here.