Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert
Physician Deals With Hospitals Are Under Scrutiny
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If your practice is working with a hospital, you may be in for scrutiny from the feds.
Just last month, the U.S. Department of Justice scored the largest settlement ever under the Stark physician self-referral law, securing $6.5 million from a South Dakota hospital.
Now it looks as if the HHS Office of Inspector General is casting its gaze on a quintet of facilities owned by hospital giant Tenet Healthcare Corp. The company admitted April 17 that the OIG has served it with a civil subpoena seeking information relating to agreements five Tenet hospitals had with the Los Gatos, Calif.-based physician group The Women's Cancer Center and 10 of its physicians.
Although it's not clear at press time what the OIG is after, the investigation is just one of the probes launched against Tenet. The OIG and the Department of Justice also have their eyes on the company's outlier billing and inpatient coding practices.
Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert
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