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Waste, Abuse, and Fraud
How We Sort It Out
Timothy S. Brady, Ph.D., FACHE, FHFMA
Regional Inspector General OEI
LIMITED OFFICAL USE ONLY DHHS/OIG
A C LAgency for Community
Living
ATSDRAgency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry
2
Office of Audit ServicesProvides all auditing services for HHS to improve operations.
Office of Counsel to the Inspector GeneralGeneral legal services, civil, criminal, and administrative cases, corporate integrity agreements, advisory opinions.
Protect the integrity of HHS programs through program inspections and evaluations.
Office of Evaluation and Inspections
Office of InvestigationsInsure the integrity of HHS Programs through prevention,deterrence, and prosecution.
Waste, Abuse, And Fraud
Academic Medicine: August 2013 ‐ Volume 88 ‐ Issue 8 ‐ p 1081–1087
Questionable Billing Issues
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Inquiry‐suspicious claims patterns
Identify billing patterns
Relationship Modeling
Analysis and referral action
Uncovering Potential Fraud
Suspicious Claims Patterns
• Claims v. other behavior
– Quick start‐up
– DME: avoid customers
• Unusual geographic areas
– Determine characteristics to measure
– Group claims by CBSA
– Compare CBSAs
– Similarity to known problems
Developing a predictive model
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Assemble training data
Develop predictors
Apply model to new data
Train model
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Physicians (actually includes all non‐institutional Part B providers except DME)
Part D pharmacies
Part D prescribers
Part D controlled substance prescribers (“pill‐mill” model)
Home health agencies
Plus in development: Part B items that are ordered (such as DME and lab claims)
Predictive models to detect Medicare fraud
$0 $100,000,000 $200,000,000 $300,000,000 $400,000,000 $500,000,000
New York
Miami
Los Angeles
Detroit
Houston
Philadelphia
Medicare payment to provider outliers (at least 10 drug/procedure categories)
2009
2010
2011
2012
Overall geographic concentration
of provider outliers
Provider outliers: New York2009‐2012
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0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Other providers
Other physician
Podiatry
Fam/Gen Practice
Phys Med/Rehab (MD)
Phys/Occ/Chiro
Int Medicine
Pharmacy
CMHC
Home Health
Number of provider outliers (at least 10 drug/procedure categories)
2009
2010
2011
2012
5
Provider cluster example
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Physicaltherapist
Internalmedicine
Occupationaltherapist
Chiropractor
IDTF
= 81 to 100%
= 61 to 80%
= 41 to 60%
= 21 to 40%
= 1 to 20%
1,954 patients
2,053 patients
1,198 patients
2,795 patients
729 patients
= in FPS*
= not in FPS
*Fraud Prevention System
Relationships
• Provider rings
– Beneficiary sharing
– Ownership connections
• Beneficiary‐provider connections
– Distance
– Multiple statuses (inpatient v. part B)
– Referring/ordering strangers
Questionable Billing Practices
Waste or Abuse??
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Red Flag Issues
Surge or significant growth in procedure or service line‐ outcomes
Practice patterns out of norm‐ necessity
Complaints or concerns‐ unnecessary procedures
Coverage criteria and documentation‐medical necessity
Improper Payments
• Federal funds paid to wrong recipient
– Identity theft
• Recipients receive incorrect payment amount
– Upcoding
• Lack of appropriate documentation
– No edits to stop payment
• Recipients use funds in improper manner
– Grant abuses
The Dentist is waiting 4 U
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Nursing Homes99% of records reviewed did not contain evidence of compliance with Federal requirements for care plan development
Assisted Living Facilities77% of beneficiaries reside in facilities cited for one or more deficiencies
For Profit Hospices in ALFsPaid $193 million in 4 States (AZ,CA,PA,TX) in 2012‐ serving 150 patients
Home Health Agencies15% of HHAs repeat deficiency citations
Questionable Practices?
Diabetic Testing Supplies (DTS)
• Medicare claims data revealed claims for the more expensive, non‐mail‐order DTS increased after a reimbursement rate difference implemented in 2009.
• Audit found suppliers may have been taking advantage of a loophole by delivering DTS in company‐owned vehicles, costing Medicare millions.
• The loophole was closed with various measures.
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March 2014
Questionable Billing for Medicaid Pediatric Dental Services in New York OEI‐02‐12‐00330
Analysis of fee‐for‐service paid claims for general dentists and orthodontists who provided services to 50 or more children in 2012.
Identified 23 general dentists and 6 orthodontists ‐ extreme outliers when compared to their peers.Medicaid paid these providers $13.2 million for pediatric dental services in 2012.
A third of the general dentists associated with a single dental chain that had settled lawsuits for providing services that were medically unnecessary or that failed to meet professionally recognized standards of care to children.
FRAUD
Second Highest Chiropractic Medicare Biller in California Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud
U.S. Department of Justice For Immediate Release September 25, 2013
LOS ANGELES – A San Fernando Valley chiropractor … defrauded Medicare by billing for patients he never treated. … submitted over $1.7 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare…. As part of his guilty plea, [he] admitted that, in an effort to conceal his fraud from auditors, he staged an early‐morning car jacking outside his office and falsely reported that his patient files had been stolen.
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Chiropractor’s Office
So Cal HHA Owner Sentenced‐ July 2014
• Great Care Home Health Inc.
– $5 million scheme over 3 years
• Targeted elderly Korean beneficiaries
– Paid cappers and beneficiaries for referrals
– Billed for non‐home bound, unlicensed services
• Accomplices
– 71 y/o physician ‐ sentenced to 1 year, $1.09 mm
– 70 y/o nurse ‐ sentenced to 18 months
– 60 y/o recruiter ‐ sentenced to 4 months
San Francisco and Los Banos Doctor Sentenced To Two Years in Prison in $3.2M Medicare Fraud Scheme August 2014
Recruited beneficiaries in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods including a fast food restaurant at the Powell Street cable car turnaround and a Tenderloin neighborhood senior center.
After identifying beneficiaries, Calaustro, with Abad or Saavedra, went to the beneficiaries’ homes with a portable copy machine, copied their Medicare cards, and conducted sham examinations to obtain background information for the required Medicare paperwork.
$100 kickback for each power wheelchair prescription. $100 and $50 kickback, respectively, for each beneficiary.
DME owners were paid more than $1.6 million
Submitted over 400 false and fraudulent claims to Medicare prepared by Calaustro.
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Tufts Health Plan Employee Discloses PHI
• Pleaded guilty to stealing 8,700 records
– 27 y/o employee
– Customers over 65 y/o
– Given to Florida accomplices
• 5 years in prison, $250,000 fine
– Charge‐ stealing personal identifying information
Most Common Forms of Provider Fraud
►Billing for services not rendered
►Misrepresentation of services provided
►Provision of medically unnecessary services
►Kickbacks
►Identity theft
Common Vulnerabilities
• Low barriers to entry
– Non‐clinician ownership
– Licensure required, but…
• [Semi‐] Organized crime
• Pervasive in area
• Kickbacks/inducements
• ID theft
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Suspicious Claims Patterns
• Claims v. other behavior
– Quick start‐up
– DME: avoid customers
• Unusual geographic areas
– Determine characteristics to measure
– Group claims by CBSA
– Compare CBSAs
– Similarity to known problems
“In one two-story office building that supposedly housed more than 30 DMEPOS suppliers, we were hard-pressed to find a single legitimate proprietor.”
Weapons seized in
Medicare Fraud bust
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www.OIG.HHS.GOV
To report Healthcare Fraud call:
1.800.hhs.tips
1.800.447.8477