Medicare Proposes New Steps to Protect Taxpayer Dollars – Affordable Care Act Gives New Authority To Recover Overpayments More Quickly

On Tuesday, February 14, CMS proposed that providers and suppliers must report and return self-identified overpayments either within 60 days of the incorrect payment being identified or on the date when a corresponding cost report is due, whichever is later. The new announcement is one in a series of steps Medicare is taking to protect taxpayer dollars, including efforts to prevent overpayments from occurring. These efforts include letting private auditors working on behalf of Medicare catch wasteful spending before it happens, by expanding the use of Recovery Audit Contractors; testing changes to outdated hospital billing systems to help prevent over-billing; and changing processes for approving payments for medical equipment with high error rates. Before the Affordable Care Act, providers did not face an explicit deadline for returning taxpayers’ money. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there will be a specific timeframe by which overpayments must be reported returned. Any failure to report and return the overpayment within the applicable time frame could be a violation of the False Claims Act. Providers also could be subject to civil monetary penalties or excluded from participating in federal healthcare programs for failure to report and return an overpayment.

Source: https://www.noridianmedicare.com/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=EFkAukVkVkofjWQdPp&tmpl=part_b_viewnews&style=part_ab_viewnews