For Your Health:
Keeping the Pulse of the Law
Don’t expose yourself to unnecessary risks. Documentation containing inadvertent errors can often times be used as the basis for civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions before those accused have the opportunity to explain or correct those errors. SNF scrutiny in a politically charged environment warrants operators to place additional emphasis on documentation compliance to avoid issues.
In advance of the President’s State of the Union address, the White House released a Fact Sheet yesterday entitled Protecting Seniors and People with Disabilities by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes. The Fact Sheet is intended to summarize the Administration’s reform efforts, developed by and implemented through the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) to improve the safety and quality of nursing home care nationally. These Federal reforms could have significant consequences for the nursing home industry if implemented.
We highlight a recent advisory opinion, OIG Advisory Opinion No. 21-18, regarding a long term care provider’s proposed arrangement with a therapy services vendor. The facts presented in the Opinion are straightforward and include elements not unlike many typical joint venture (JV) and management service organization (MSO) arrangements in the health care space.
There is good news for health care providers this holiday season with HHS’s recent announcement of numerous revisions liberalizing the AKS, Stark and CMP Laws. Among the helpful changes are modifications to the popular AKS personal services and management contracts safe harbor for part-time arrangements, and new AKS safe harbors and Stark exceptions for care coordination activities that could benefit post-acute care providers.
