Group Details Plan To Help Prevent Medicare Fraud, Abuse Related To Durable Medical Equipment

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Article Date: 12 Feb 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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The American Association for Homecare on Tuesday outlined the details of a 13-point plan designed to help prevent Medicare fraud and abuse related to durable medical equipment, CQ HealthBeat reports.

Among other points, the plan would require site inspections for all suppliers of home DME, such as walkers, hospital beds and oxygen. The plan also would require site inspections for all contract renewals with such suppliers. In addition, the plan would require a "comprehensive and effective applications process" for potential new home DME suppliers and a six-month trial period for such suppliers. The plan also would establish an antifraud office within Medicare and strengthen penalties and fines for fraud and abuse.

AAH President Tyler Wilson said that the plan is intended to help reduce Medicare fraud , which costs the program as much as $60 billion annually. Medicare spends about $10 billion on DME annually, and related fraud and abuse accounts for less than $1 billion of that amount, according to CQ HealthBeat (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 2/10).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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