Healthicity Blog

Coding audits are the heartbeat of any compliance program. That’s why staying on track with your audit is essential to your program's success.

Those of you who have been following my work on the Healthicity blog, my webinars and/or speaking engagements know that one of my topics of choice is the government's increased efforts to hold individuals, not just organizations, accountable for suspected non-compliance.

1. Medicare Compliance Review of Parkridge Medical Center, Inc., for 2014 and 2015 - “Medicare Compliance Review of Parkridge Medical Center, Inc., for 2014 and 2015 Parkridge Medical Center, Inc. (the Hospital), located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, complied with Medicare billing requirements for 88...

Most of us have seen the emotionally charged video of University of Utah nurse, Alex Wubbels, being arrested by Salt Lake City Police after refusing to allow the police to draw blood from an unconscious patient.

When a lot of healthcare organizations consider their risk under the False Claims Act, they often think of coding and billing errors submitted on 1500s or UBs. It’s probably the first place I’d consider looking as well for the greatest risk to a Medicare or Medicaid healthcare provider.

The field of compliance isn’t as simple as hiring honest people who will hopefully “always obey the rules.” In fact, careful hiring doesn’t constitute a compliance plan at all.

If you have a compliance program, you most likely have a full-time compliance officer or an individual who is accountable for your organization’s compliance program, even if it’s only a portion of that person’s overall duties.

Recently, compliance failures cost Florida physicians over $4 million dollars and resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement for a Tennessee hospital. The message is clear: compliance is no joke.