Home Health & Hospice Week

Help referral sources and plug your organization all at once. Looking for a good reason to touch base with your physician referral sources? Look no further than a new fraud warning from Part B Carrier CIGNA Healthcare Medicare Administration.
 
CIGNA issued a provider enrollment fraud alert Jan. 14 warning physician practices about an organized group that calls docs claiming to be either a Medicare fraud investigator or a Medicare employee from the enrollment, claims or audit units. These callers tell the physician or office personnel that the Medicare computer system has malfunctioned or that the physician's provider record needs to be updated.
 
Then, the callers request a faxed copy of the physician's driver's license, social security number, practice address, unique physician identification number and even his or her medical license.
 
You can contact your referring physicians to let them know that if they hand over that info, they could wake up to find their official practice locations, telephone numbers and pay-to addresses have all been changed.
 
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has not suffered any computer system malfunction and are not calling providers requesting the above information be provided," CIGNA stresses in the alert.
 
Passing on the fraud information is a chance to lend a helping hand to physician referral sources and boost your marketing efforts all at once. Staying in the forefront of your referral sources' minds helps them refer to you more often.
 
"The HHA needs to position themselves as the trusted resource for valuable and timely information," advises Mike Ferris of Home Care Marketing Solutions in Chapel Hill, NC. Passing on the alert is "definitely something that can add to the HHA/physician relationship-building process," Ferris tells Eli. 
 
Editor's Note: The fraud alert is at www.cignamedicare.com/articles/Jan05/Cope1899.html.