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Home Health & Hospice Week

Fraud & Abuse:

HHAs Should Tread Carefully With ALF Relationships

Published on Tue Jul 19, 2011

OIG may turn its focus on this compliance trouble spot next. Home health agencies may think they aren't affected by the OIG's recent report on potential improper relationships between hospices and nursing homes, but they should think again. It's true that HHAs generally can't serve Medicare beneficiaries that reside in nursing homes, acknowledges attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Benesch/Dann Pecar in Indianapolis. But the hospice-nursing home relationship looks very similar to the one between HHAs and assisted living facilities, Markette points out. "HHAs can find themselves pressured to take marginal home health patients as a 'favor' to an ALF," Markette cautions. "The fact that the ALF controls a large number of potential referrals can lead to a great deal of pressure for agencies to accept these marginal patients." Agencies may also feel leaned on to provide "freebies" to ALF residents at the facility's request, Markette adds. Either of these situations [...]
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