OIG Behavioral and Mental Health Work Plan Updates

When the OIG changed their approach to updating their Work Plan, from an annual update, to regular monthly updates, around here, we rejoiced. Because just like you, we live and breathe this stuff. But with so many updates coming each month, especially as part of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we know keeping up with all of the new updates has been a challenge.

Which is why we started scouring the updates, assembling them into digestible chunks, and posting them here on the Healthicity blog. In the latest round of notable updates, we found a ton of OIG Work Plan items focused on Mental and Behavioral health services. This is at least in part because the OIG determined that during the first 8 months of 2020, 43% of Medicare payments were for services provided via telehealth (compared to less than 1% in calendar year 2019).

Specifically, we found that:

• One Work Plan item we read plans to focus on psychotherapy provided through telehealth means.
• In a separate, though related Work Plan item, the OIG announced their plan to investigate the use of telehealth to provide behavioral health services in the Medicaid Managed Care space.
• In a third work plan item describes audit work for psychotherapy services outside of telehealth.

   

In addition to these Work Plan items, the OIG has already performed proactive audits on select providers, where they have identified high error rates when reporting psychotherapy services.

To better understand what the OIG has up its sleeve, we’re going to dive deeper than just this blog post by hosting a new, dedicated webinar on these mental and behavioral health work plan updates. It’s called “Understanding the Recent Enforcements of Mental Health Services,” where we’ll summarize the latest settlements, proactive audits, and proposed Work Plan items, and share with you:

• Missteps that Lead to Fines and Settlements
• Guidance So You Can Avoid Similar Acts of Non-Compliance
• Recent OIG and DOJ Work in Mental Health and Psychotherapy

The webinar will be hosted on Wednesday, June 2 at 1 PM ET. And, for those in attendance, you’ll receive 1.2 FREE HCCA CCB CEU credits. Unable to make the live event? No problem, simply register anyway, and we’ll send you a copy of the on-demand recording and a separate opportunity to receive CCB CEU credit for the on-demand version.

I hope to see you there.