RAC Audits Expected During the COVID Pandemic
Even though the public health emergency (“PHE”) for the COVID pandemic is scheduled to expire July 24, 2020, all evidence indicates that the PHE will be renewed. I cannot imagine a scenario in which the PHE is not extended, especially with the sudden uptick of COVID.
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has given guidance that the voluminous number of exceptions that CMS has granted during this period of the PHE may be extended to Dec. 1, 2020. However, there is no indication of the RAC, and MAC audits being suspended until December 2020. In fact, we expect the audits to begin again any day. There will be confusion when audits resume and COVID exceptions are revoked on a rolling basis.
Remember the emergency-room physician whom I spoke about on the June 29 on Monitor Mondays? The physician whose Medicare enrollment was revoked due to a computer error or an error on the part of CMS. What normally would have been an easy fix, because of COVID, became more difficult. Because of COVID, he was unable to work for three months. He is back up and running now. The point is that COVID really messed up so many aspects of our lives.
The extension of PHE, technically, has no bearing on RAC and MAC audits coming back. Word on the street is that RAC and MAC audits are returning August 2020.
This month, July 2020, CMS released, “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Provider Burden Relief Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).” (herein afterward referred as “CMS July 2020 FAQs”).
The question was posed to CMS: “Is CMS suspending most Medicare-Fee-for-Service (FFS) medical review during the PHE for the COVID-19 pandemic? The answer is, according to CMS, “As states reopen, and given the importance of medical review activities to CMS’ program integrity efforts, CMS expects to discontinue exercising enforcement discretion beginning on Aug. 3, 2020, regardless of the status of the public health emergency. If selected for review, providers should discuss with their contractor any COVID-19-related hardships they are experiencing that could affect audit response timeliness. CMS notes that all reviews will be conducted in accordance with statutory and regulatory provisions, as well as related billing and coding requirements. Waivers and flexibilities in place at the time of the dates of service of any claims potentially selected for review will also be applied.” See CMS July 2020 FAQs.
Monday, July 13, 2020, we began our fourth “COVID-virtual trial.” The Judges with whom I have had interaction have taken a hard stance to not “force” someone to appear in person. It appears, at least to me, that virtual trials are the wave of the future. This is the guidance that conveys to me that RAC and MAC audits will begin again in August. Virtual audits may even be the best thing that ever happened to RAC and MAC audits. Maybe now the auditors will actually read the documents that the provider gives them.
Another specific issue addressed in the CMS’ July 2020 FAQs is that given the nature of the pandemic and the inability to collect signatures during this time, CMS will not be enforcing the signature requirement. Typically, Part B drugs and certain Durable Medical Equipment (DME) covered by Medicare require proof of delivery and/or a beneficiary’s signature. Suppliers should document in the medical record the appropriate date of delivery and that a signature was not able to be obtained because of COVID-19. This exception may or may not extend until Dec. 31, 2020.
The upshot is that no one really knows how the next few months will unfold in the healthcare industry. Some hospitals and healthcare systems are going under due to COVID. Big and small hospital systems are in financial despair. A RAC or MAC audit hitting in the wake of the COVID pandemic could cripple most providers. I will reiterate my recommendation: In the re-arranged words of Roosevelt, “Speak loudly, and carry a big stick.”
Programming Note: Knicole Emanuel is a permanent panelist on Monitor Mondays. Listen to her live reporting every Monday at 10 a.m. EST.
PHE Is an Enigma for Most Providers
As of now, the public health emergency (PHE) for the COVID-19 pandemic will expire July 24, 2020, unless it is renewed. Fellow contributor David Glaser and I have both reported on the potential end date of the PHE. Recent intel from Dr. Ronald Hirsh is that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) may renew the PHE period. Each time the PHE period is renewed, it is effective for another 90 days. Recent news about the uptick in COVID cases may have already alerted you that the PHE period will probably be prolonged.
CMS has given guidance that the exceptions that it has granted during this period of the PHE may be extended to Dec. 1, 2020. There is no indication of the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) and Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) audits being suspended until December 2020. In fact, we expect the audits to begin again any day. There will be confusion when audits resume and COVID exceptions are revoked on a rolling basis.
I witnessed some interesting developments as a health care attorney during this ongoing pandemic. Three of my physician clients were erroneously placed on the Medicare exclusion lists. One would think that during the pandemic, CMS would move mountains to allow a Harvard-trained ER doctor to work in an ER. Because of the lack of staff, it was actually difficult to achieve an easy fix. This doctor was suspended from Medicare based on an accidental and inadvertent omission of a substance abuse issue more than 10 years ago. He disclosed everything except an 11-year-old misdemeanor. He did not omit the misdemeanor purposely. Instead, this ER physician relies on other hospital staff to submit his Medicare re-credentialing every year, as he should. It just happened that this year, the year of COVID, this doctor got caught up in a mistake that in normal times would have been a phone call away from fixing. We cleared up his issue, but not until he was unable to work for over two months, during the midst of the PHE.
At the time of the announcement of the public health emergency, another company, a home health provider, was placed on prepayment review. I am not sure how many of you are familiar with prepayment review, but this is a Draconian measure that all States and the federal government may wield against health care providers. When you are on prepayment review, you cannot get paid until another independent contracted entity reviews your claims “objectively.” I say objectively in quotes because I have yet to meet a prepayment review audit with which I agreed.
Mostly because of COVID, we were forced to argue for a preliminary injunction, allowing this home heath provider to continue to provide services and get paid for services rendered during the PHE. We were successful. That was our first lawsuit during COVID. I believe we went to trial in April 2020. We had another trial in May 2020, for which we have not received the result, although we have high hopes. I may be able to let you know the outcome eventually. But for now, because of COVID, with a shortage of court reporters willing to work, we will not receive the transcript from the trial until over four weeks after the trial.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we begin our third COVID trial. For the first time since COVID, it will not be virtual. This is the guidance that conveys to me that RAC and MAC audits will begin again soon. If a civil judge is ordering the parties to appear in person, then the COVID stay-at-home orders must be decreasing. I cannot say I am happy about this most recent development (although audits may be easier if they are conducted virtually).
The upshot is that no one really knows how the next few months will unfold in the healthcare industry. Some hospitals and healthcare systems are going under due to COVID. Big and small hospital systems are in financial despair. A RAC or MAC audit hitting in the wake of the COVID pandemic could cripple most providers. In the rearranged words of Roosevelt, “speak loudly, and carry a big stick.”
Audits in the Time of COVID
Originally posted on RACMonitor. Tune in for Knicole Emanuel’s webinar on June 17, 2020, Post-Pandemic Audits.
Instead of “Love in the Time of Cholera,” we are currently living through “Audits in the Time of COVID.”
The period we are all still facing has been dubbed, legally, a public health emergency, or PHE (not to be confused with PPE). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has loosely defined what a PHE is – but the definition is fluid. As of now, CMS is defining it as the period of time between Jan. 27, 2020, and a date to be determined. It includes today and is ongoing.
Dear all, COVID-19 is really not over! The defined period of the PHE has yet to be definitively defined.
Audits are being restarted. There is no doubt. The dates of service that will provide the most confusion in Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) and Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) audits will be Jan. 27, 2020 through June 8, 2020. In the future, when you receive document requests for dates of service in 2020, tread lightly and carry a big stick.
CMS’s RAC program’s mission is to identify and correct improper Medicare payments through on-site and desk review audits, and to detect and collect overpayments made on claims of healthcare services reimbursed for services rendered. The 2020 executive summary forecasting how audits would be conducted in 2020 was published in December 2019. There may have been some variables since its publication, like COVID-19.
For those 1.2 million providers participating in Medicare Quality Payment Programs and on the front lines of America’s fight against COVID, the quality reporting guidelines have been suspended. You were given reprieve from quality reporting, but it will not include a stay from RAC and MAC audits targeting dates of service during the PHE.
Medicare Appeals in Fee-for-Service (FFS), Medicare Advantage (MA), and Part D
CMS is allowing MACs and qualified independent contractors (QICs) in the FFS program and the Medicare Advantage and Part D Independent Review Entities (IREs) to waive requests for timeliness requirements for additional information to adjudicate appeals.
CMS is also allowing Medicare provider appeals to be processed:
- Even if the appointment of representation is incomplete;
- Even if the appeals do not meet the required elements using information that is available as outlined within 42 CFR §422.561 and 42 CFR §423.560;
- Utilizing all flexibilities available in the appeal process, if good cause requirements are satisfied.
- Good cause allows recoupments to be stayed during appeal process, which can be a saving grace for a provider under scrutiny.
Medicaid also has implemented waivers that differ from state to state during the PHE.
The following are examples of flexibilities that states and territories may seek through a Section 1135 waiver request:
- Waived prior authorization requirements in fee-for-service programs.
- Permission for providers located out of state/territory to provide care to another state’s Medicaid enrollee impacted by the emergency.
- Temporary suspension of certain provider enrollment and revalidation requirements to increase access to care.
- Temporary waiving of requirements that physicians and other healthcare professionals be licensed in the state in which they are providing services, so long as they have an equivalent licensing in another state; and
- Temporary suspension of requirements for certain pre-admission and annual screenings for nursing home residents.
Check your state for all newly waived exceptions during this public health crisis.
Time-stamp all research so you will be prepared to argue before a judge that whatever day is at issue falls within the definition of the PHE. Because during the PHE, the exceptions define the rules.
Programming Note: Knicole Emanuel is a permanent panelist on Monitor Mondays. Listen to her live reporting every Monday at 10 a.m. EST
A Court Case in the Time of COVID: The Judge Forgot to Swear in the Witnesses
Since COVID-19, courts across the country have been closed. Judges have been relaxing at home.
As an attorney, I have not been able to relax. No sunbathing for me. Work has increased since COVID-19 (me being a healthcare attorney). I never thought of myself as an essential worker. I still don’t think that I am essential.
On Friday, May 8, my legal team had to appear in court.
“How in the world are we going to do this?” I thought.
My law partner lives in Philadelphia. Our client lives in Charlotte, N.C. I live on a horse farm in Apex, N.C. Who knows where the judge lives, or opposing counsel or their witnesses? How were we going to question a witness? Or exchange documents?
Despite COVID-19, we had to have court, so I needed to buck up, stop whining, and figure it out. “Pull up your bootstraps, girl,” I thought.
First, we practiced on Microsoft Teams. Multiple times. It is not a user-friendly interface. This Microsoft Team app was the judge’s choice, not mine. I had never heard of it. It turns out that it does have some cool features. For example, my paralegal had 100-percent control of the documents. If we needed a document up on the screen, then he made it pop up, at my direction. If I wanted “control” of the document, I simply placed my mouse cursor over it. But then my paralegal did not have control. In other words, two people cannot fight over a document on this new “TV Court.”
The judge forgot to swear in the witnesses. That was the first mess-up “on the record.” I didn’t want to call her out in front of people, so I went with it. She remembered later and did swear everyone in. These are new times.
Then we had to discuss HIPAA, because this was a health care provider asking for immediate relief because of COVID-19. We were sharing personal health information (PHI) over all of our computers and in space. We asked the judge to seal the record before we even got started. All of a sudden, our court case made us all “essentials.” Besides my client, the healthcare provider, no one else involved in this court case was an “essential.” We were all on the computer trying to get this provider back to work during COVID-19. That is what made us essentials!
Interestingly, we had 10 people participating on the Microsoft Team “TV Court” case. The person that I kept forgetting was there was Mr. Carr (because Mr. Carr works at the courthouse and I have never seen him). Also, another woman stepped in for a while, so even though the “name” of the masked attendee was Mr. Carr, for a while Patricia was in charge. A.K.A. Mr. Carr.
You cannot see all 10 people on the Team app. We discovered that whomever spoke, their face would pop up on the screen. I could only see three people at a time on the screen. Automatically, the app chose the three people to be visible based on who had spoken most recently. We were able to hold this hearing because of the mysterious Mr. Carr.
The witnesses stayed on the application the whole time. In real life, witnesses listen to others’ testimony all the time, but with this, you had to remember that everyone could hear everything. You can elect to not video-record yourself and mute yourself. When I asked my client to step away and have a private conversation, my paralegal, my partner, and the client would log off the link and log back on an 8 a.m. link that we used to practice earlier that day. That was our private chat room.
The judge wore no robe. She looked like she was sitting on the back porch of her house. Birds were whistling in the background. It was a pretty day, and there was a bright blue sky…wherever she was. No one wore suits except for me. I wore a nice suit. I wore no shoes, but a nice suit. Everyone one else wore jeans and a shirt.
I didn’t have to drive to the courthouse and find parking. I didn’t even have to wear high heels and walk around in them all day. I didn’t have to tell my paralegal to carry all 1,500 pages of exhibits to the courthouse, or bring him Advil for when he complains that his job is making his back ache.
Whenever I wanted to get a refill of sweet tea or go to the bathroom, I did so quietly. I turned off my video and muted myself and carried my laptop to the bathroom. Although, now, I completely understand why the Supreme Court had its “Supreme Flush.”
All in all, it went as smoothly as one could hope in such an awkward platform.
Oh, and happily, we won the injunction, and now a home healthcare provider can go back to work during COVID-19. All of her aides have PPE. All of her aides want to go to work to earn money. They are willing to take the risk. My client should get back-paid for all her services rendered prior to the injunction. She hadn’t been getting paid for months. However, this provider is still on prepayment review due to N.C. Gen. Stat. 108C-7(e), which legislators should really review. This statute does not work. Especially in the time of COVID. See blog.
I may be among the first civil attorneys to go to court in the time of COVID-19. If I’m honest, I kind of liked it better. I can go to the bathroom whenever I need to, as long as I turn off my audio. Interestingly, Monday, Texas began holding its first jury trial – virtually. I cannot wait to see that cluster! It is streaming live.
Being on RACMonitor for so long definitely helped me prepare for my first remote lawsuit. My next lawsuit will be in New York City, where adult day care centers are not getting properly reimbursed.
RACMonitor Programming Note:
Healthcare attorney Knicole Emanuel is a permanent panelist on Monitor Monday and you can hear her reporting every Monday, 10-10:30 a.m. EST.
Contract Law Versus Executive Orders: Which Wins in the Wake of a Worldwide Pandemic?
How much power does an Executive Order signed by your State’s Governor actually wield? Governors, all of whom are elected, serve as the CEOs of the 50 states, five commonwealths, and territories of the U.S.
As CEO of their particular State, Governors are responsible for ensuring that each State is adequately prepared for emergencies and disasters of all types and sizes. Most emergencies and disasters are handled at the local level, and few require a presidential disaster declaration or attract worldwide media attention. Yet here we are. A global pandemic affecting every single person on the planet.
This is not a tornado. It’s not Sept. 11 or giant killer hornets, which are also apparently a new thing. This virus has uprooted the world in a way that no one has ever witnessed.
Not everyone is following Governors’ Executive Orders. For example, multiple adult day care centers contacted me recently from New York. Governor Cuomo has issued multiple Executive Orders regarding telehealth, basically relaxing the rules and forcing higher reimbursement rates and allowing for more telehealth, when in the past, it would not have been allowed. However, private insurance companies are refusing to obey the governor’s executive orders. The private companies argue that the providers signed a binding contract that does not include telehealth. The private payors argue that contract law trumps a governor’s executive order, even though the governor has ordered it because of the pandemic. Governor Cuomo has suspended New York State Public Health Law §2999-cc, as well as numerous others.
These adult day centers have followed the governor’s executive orders and are providing telehealth to maintain elderly socialization. The mental health aspect is their main concern right now.
There is no consistency in how the private companies are complying or not complying. Some private payors have issued amendments to the providers’ contracts, allowing telehealth, but at a serious financial decrease. Where the visit would have been reimbursed at $100-200, the new contract amendments allow for reimbursement rates of $25.
Others stick to the contracts and refuse to reimburse telehealth for these adult day care centers at all.
According to one of the companies that spoke with me, the adult day care centers in New York are losing approximately $56,000 per month. Now, I know that most health care providers are losing money in this pandemic. My friend who is an ER nurse says she has never seen the ER so empty. We cannot have our hospitals close. But in the case of the adult day care centers, we can point to a legal reason that providers should be reimbursed during this pandemic. The private payors are blatantly not following the Governor’s Executive Order.
Here, in North Carolina, the reimbursement rates for health care providers are increasing, sometimes doubling, as in the case of home health due to the shortage of health care providers willing to go onto someone’s home. From about $15 to $33 per hour. Thank you to all you home health workers! It is a scary time, and you are essential.
The providers want to sue to get the reimbursements that they are owed.
This is just one example of how discombobulated COVID-19 has made everyone.
Then add in the next variable of New Yorkers re-entering society and the “stay at home” Orders being lifted. I do not think that the problem with private payors not following a Governor’s Executive Order will just vanish when the state reopens. These providers have lost their higher reimbursable rates and cannot get that money unless they sue.
If I were a betting woman, I would bet that there are hundreds of intricate ways that insurance companies have not followed their particular states’ executive orders. Think about this: even if the companies were truly trying to abide by all executive orders, those companies in multiple states may get opposing orders from different states. So then a nationwide private payor is expected to follow 50 different executive orders. I can see why it would be difficult to comply with everything.
We have to ask ourselves – does an Executive Order, in a time of crisis, trump normal laws, including basic contract law? If the answer is yes, then how do we make private payer insurance companies comply?
Programming Note:
Knicole Emanuel is a permanent panelist on Monitor Monday. Listen to her live reporting every Monday at 10-10:30 a.m. EST.
NC’s DHHS’ Secretary’s Handling of COVID-19: Yay or Nay?
I posted/wrote the below blog in 2017. I re-read my February 10, 2017, blog, which was entitled “NC DHHS’ New Secretary – Yay or Nay?” with the new perspective of COVID-19 being such a hot potato topic and sparking so much controversy. Interestingly, at least to me, I still stand by what I wrote. You have to remember that viruses are not political. Viruses spread despite your bank account, age, or location. Sure, variables matter. For example, I am statistically safer from COVID because I live on a small, horse farm in North Carolina rather than an apartment in Manhattan.
The facts are the facts. Viruses and facts are not political.
I was surprised that more people did not react to my February 10, 2017, blog, which is re-posted below – exactly as it was first posted. For some reason (COVID-19), people are re-reading it.
___________________________________
Our newly appointed DHHS Secretary comes with a fancy and distinguished curriculum vitae. Dr. Mandy Cohen, DHHS’ newly appointed Secretary by Gov. Roy Cooper, is trained as an internal medicine physician. She is 38 (younger than I am) and has no known ties to North Carolina. She grew up in New York; her mother was a nurse practitioner. She is also a sharp contrast from our former, appointed, DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos. See blog.
Prior to the appointment as our DHHS Secretary, Dr. Cohen was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief of Staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Prior to acting as the COO of CMS, she was Principal Deputy Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at CMS where she oversaw the Health Insurance Marketplace and private insurance market regulation. Prior to her work at CCIIO, she served as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator coordinating Affordable Care Act implementation activities.
Did she ever practice medicine?
Prior to acting as Senior Advisor to the Administrator, Dr. Cohen was the Director of Stakeholder Engagement for the CMS Innovation Center, where she investigated new payment and care delivery models.
Dr. Cohen received her Bachelor’s degree in policy analysis and management from Cornell University, 2000. She obtained her Master’s degree in health administration from Harvard University School of Public Health, 2004, and her Medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine, 2005.
She started as a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2005 through 2008, then was deputy director for comprehensive women’s health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs from July 2008 through July 2009. From 2009 through 2011, she was executive director of the Doctors for America, a group that promoted the idea that any federal health reform proposal ought to include a government-run “public option” health insurance program for the uninsured.
Again, I was perplexed. Did she ever practice medicine? Does she even have a current medical license?
This is what I found:
It appears that Dr. Cohen was issued a medical license in 2007, but allowed it to expire in 2012 – most likely, because she was no longer providing medical services and was climbing the regulatory and political ladder.
From what I could find, Dr. Cohen practiced medicine (with a fully-certified license) from June 20, 2007, through July 2009 (assuming that she practiced medicine while acting as the deputy director for comprehensive women’s health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs).
Let me be crystal clear: It is not my contention that Dr. Cohen is not qualified to act as our Secretary to DHHS because she seemingly only practiced medicine (fully-licensed) for two years. Her political and policy experience is impressive. I am only saying that, to the extent that Dr. Cohen is being touted as a perfect fit for our new Secretary because of her medical experience, let’s not make much ado of her practicing medicine for two years.
That said, regardless Dr. Cohen’s practical medical experience, anyone who has been the COO of CMS must have intricate knowledge of Medicare and Medicaid and the essential understanding of the relationship between NC DHHS and the federal government. In this regard, Cooper hit a homerun with this appointment.
Herein lies the conundrum with Dr. Cohen’s appointment as DHHS Secretary:
Is there a conflict of interest?
During Cooper’s first week in office, our new Governor sought permission, unilaterally, from the federal government to expand Medicaid as outlined in the Affordable Care Act. This was on January 6, 2017.
To which agency does Gov. Cooper’s request to expand Medicaid go? Answer: CMS. Who was the COO of CMS on January 6, 2017? Answer: Cohen. When did Cohen resign from CMS? January 12, 2017.
On January 14, 2017, a federal judge stayed any action to expand Medicaid pending a determination of Cooper’s legal authority to do so. But Gov. Cooper had already announced his appointment of Dr. Cohen as Secretary of DHHS, who is and has been a strong proponent of the ACA. You can read one of Dr. Cohen’s statements on the ACA here.
In fact, regardless your political stance on Medicaid expansion, Gov. Cooper’s unilateral request to expand Medicaid without the General Assembly is a violation of NC S.L. 2013-5, which states:
SECTION 3. The State will not expand the State’s Medicaid eligibility under the Medicaid expansion provided in the Affordable Care Act, P.L. 111-148, as amended, for which the enforcement was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business, et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al., 132 S. Ct. 2566 (2012). No department, agency, or institution of this State shall attempt to expand the Medicaid eligibility standards provided in S.L. 2011-145, as amended, or elsewhere in State law, unless directed to do so by the General Assembly.
Obviously, if Gov. Cooper’s tactic were to somehow circumvent S.L. 2013-5 and reach CMS before January 20, 2017, when the Trump administration took over, the federal judge blockaded that from happening with its stay on January 14, 2017.
But is it a bit sticky that Gov. Cooper appointed the COO of CMS, while she was still COO of CMS, to act as our Secretary of DHHS, and requested CMS for Medicaid expansion (in violation of NC law) while Cohen was acting COO?
You tell me.
I did find an uplifting quotation from Dr. Cohen from a 2009 interview with a National Journal reporter:
“There’s a lot of uncompensated work going on, so there has to be a component that goes beyond just fee-for service… But you don’t want a situation where doctors have to be the one to take on all the risk of taking care of a patient. Asking someone to take on financial risk in a small practice is very concerning.” -Dr. Mandy Cohen
How Coronavirus Has Affected Me as a Teenage Girl – by Madison Allen
RACMonitor published my daughter’s essay on living through the Coronavirus. Madison would like to share it here, on my blog, as well. She is a fifteen-year-old in North Carolina and attends high school at Thales Academy.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for just about everyone nationwide, but uniquely so for America’s young students, some of whom have been robbed of the opportunity to play their favorite spring sports, attend the junior or senior prom, or even enjoy a proper graduation ceremony. As such, we at RACMonitor have asked the children of several of our key contributors to pen essays describing their personal experiences amid these life-changing times.
My name is Madison Allen. I am a 15-year-old girl who loves spending her time outdoors or hanging out with her friends. If neither of those options are available, then I don’t really know what else to do to cure boredom.
I love technology, don’t get me wrong, but I would much rather be active and enjoy nature. I have been raised in a household that doesn’t tolerate being lazy, so sitting in my room and binge-watching Netflix all day is not an option. Despite the fact that I can’t have fun in the normal ways that I am used to, I have come up with three good ways that have kept me busy during this time. Before we get into that, I feel that it is necessary to talk about when COVID appeared in my life and my first impressions of the disease.
It was a very normal Saturday afternoon. I was out hanging with my friends Nicole and Ariana when their phones go off, saying that school has been cancelled for the next two weeks. I was so happy, because from there my dad told me that all schools are doing the same due to the growing concerns for coronavirus. I only had one week of the third quarter left anyway, so no schoolwork was going to be issued to do at home or virtually. About an hour after Governor Cooper announced that school was cancelled for two weeks, my school, Thales Academy, finally sent an email out to us that read, “due to the order from Governor Cooper as of 4:30 p.m. today, all Thales Academy locations will be closing on Monday, March 16th. On Tuesday, March 17th, school will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for students to drop in and gather any items they need to from their lockers. Report cards will be issued to students on Tuesday, March 17th at noon. Students will return to campus for fourth quarter on April 13th.”
Me, being the child I am, thought that this was awesome, because I didn’t have to take my history test anymore. Yes, that is great but I didn’t realize the harm it is doing on the world. I wasn’t thinking about others’ lives, because I never thought that something bad would happen to me. I was really selfish when I thought about not taking the history test because I only thought of how I was benefitting, while other people were and still are suffering.
Anyway, I went through spring break, and it all got worse. I wasn’t allowed to see any of my friends, and trips, special events, and even celebrations got cancelled. When spring break was over, we were told to do online school on a website called Canvas and were given certain times to log onto Zoom to talk with our teachers. I am fortunate enough to live in a house with ample space and Internet to do schoolwork. I am also fortunate that I go to such a great school that will do their best to provide great education, no matter the circumstance.
While I have been in quarantine, I have thought of three ways to cure boredom without help from a phone. The first way is that I have been taking up a new hobby called “cleaning my room.” I haven’t made very much progress with that, though. Another way I have cured boredom is by decorating a secret room in my house and making it the ideal hangout spot. Lastly, I have been going outside and taking up hobbies that I once loved, such as bow and arrow, knitting, hiking, horseback riding, and basketball.
I am now in the third week of online school, and won’t be stopping until the end of the year. Summer break is just five weeks away, and it doesn’t look like quarantine will be ending soon. I will do my best to see the good out of this troubling time, but for now I am taking life day by day.
Update on Medicare/Medicaid Audits in the Wake of COVID-19
Published in Today’s Wound Clinic:
When I was asked to draft an article for Today’s Wound Clinic, it was approximately two weeks ago. I was asked to write about the current state of Medicare and Medicaid audits. Specifically, I was asked to provide a legal analysis about CMS suspending audits un-related to COVID-19. In the month of April, we have seen the spike of COVID-19, which has overturned our everyday world. We have been instructed by President Trump to “stay home” and “social distance” to decrease the spread of the virus. This “stay at home” instruction is unprecedented and has uprooted many of our most reliable and commonplace businesses, such as hairdressers, bowling alleys, and tattoo parlors.
Here is the answer: The current state of Medicare/Medicaid audits, at the moment, is dictated by COVID-19.
We can divide the post-COVID-19 audit rules into 3 categories:
- Those exceptions published by CMS to apply to all health care providers
- Those special, verbal exceptions given directly to an individual provider that were not published by CMS
- Effective immediately, new guidelines that CMS will follow until CMS believes it no longer needs to follow (by its own choice, of course).
An example of an “effective immediately” guideline is our current state of Medicare/Medicaid audits in the wake of COVID-19. CMS has not suspended all Medicare/Medicaid regulatory audits. But CMS has suspended most audits.
Effective immediately, survey activity is limited to the following (in Priority Order):
- All immediate jeopardy complaints (cases that represents a situation in which entity noncompliance has placed the health and safety of recipients in its care at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment or death or harm) and allegations of abuse and neglect;
- Complaints alleging infection control concerns, including facilities with potential COVID-19 or other respiratory illnesses;
- Statutorily required recertification surveys (Nursing Home, Home Health, Hospice, and ICF/IID facilities);
- Any re-visits necessary to resolve current enforcement actions;
- Initial certifications;
- Surveys of facilities/hospitals that have a history of infection control deficiencies at the immediate jeopardy level in the last three years;
- Surveys of facilities/hospitals/dialysis centers that have a history of infection control deficiencies at lower levels than immediate jeopardy.
See CMS QSO-20-12-ALL. You can see that these “effective immediately” guidelines are usually published on CMS letterhead. The “effective immediately” guidelines explain why CMS is taking the stated action, the stated action, and that the action is temporary and due to COVID-19.
Here are a few recent “effective immediately” guidelines due to COVID-19:
- On April 27, 2020, CMS said it would no longer expedite Medicare payments to doctors and be more stringent about accelerating the payments to hospitals as Congressional relief aimed at providers reaches $175 billion.
- The agency is not accepting any new applications for the loans from Part B suppliers, including doctors, non-physician practitioners and durable medical equipment suppliers. CMS will continue to process pending and new requests from Part A providers, including hospitals, but be stricter with application approvals.
- CMS expanded the Accelerated and Advance Payment Programs in late March as the pandemic continued to gain strength in the U.S. Since then, the agency has approved over 21,000 applications making up $59.6 billion in accelerated payments to Part A providers and almost 24,000 applications making up $40.4 billion in payments for Part B suppliers.
The $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security stimulus package passed by Congress in March benchmarked $100 billion in funds for hospitals. On Friday, President Donald Trump signed legislation with a second round of emergency funding, called the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, that allocates another $75 billion for providers — roughly three-quarters of what major provider trade associations requested.
An initial $30 billion from the fund was distributed between April 10 and April 17 based on Medicare fee-for-service revenue, sparking criticism that put facilities with a smaller proportion of Medicare business, such as children’s and disproportionate share hospitals, at a disadvantage. HHS on Friday began releasing an additional $20 billion in CARES payments to providers based on their 2018 net patient revenue, with more funding to roll out “soon,” the agency said, including $10 billion for hard-hit areas like New York.
How RAC/MAC auditors are compensated dictates their actions and/or aggressiveness.
RAC Auditors are paid by contingency. They are usually compensated approximately 13%, depending on the State. Imagine what 13% is of 1 million. It is $130,000 – more than most people make in a year. If you do not believe that 13% contingency is enough to incentivize a company, which, in turn, incentivize the employees, then you are sorely mistaken.
RACs were established through a demonstration program under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (“MMA”), piloted between 2005 and 2008, and were later made permanent under the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, which required CMS to establish Recovery Auditors for all states before 2010.
MACs are not compensated by contingency, per se. CMS decided to structure the MAC contracts with 1-year base performance periods and four, optional, 1-year performance periods at the time. The MMA required that these contracts be recompeted at least once every 5 years. The recent enactment of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 amended this requirement to authorize a maximum 10-year performance period before MAC contracts must be recompeted. The amendment, which applies to MAC contracts in effect at the time of enactment or entered into on or after enactment, would permit CMS to modify existing MAC contracts or enter into future MAC contracts for 1-year base performance periods and nine optional 1-year performance periods. See Pub. L. No. 114-10, § 509(a)- (b) (April 16, 2015). Therefore, while MACs are not compensated on contingency, MACs are compensated on performance. The less a MAC spends, the more services a MAC allows, the strict oversight a MCA ensues on its providers…all these “performance-based” measures may not be a contingency compensation relationship, but it’s pretty close. Saved money becomes profit for MACs.
Medicare and Medicaid auditors love rules. Even if the rules that auditors are instructed to follow really are not required by actual law. It goes without saying that auditors are not lawyers. Auditors are not trained to decipher whether statutes, regulations or policy are superseded by federal statutes and regulations. The fact is that, more times than one would hope, the auditors are wrong in their assessments that a claim should be denied, not out of malice, but because of a basic misunderstanding of what the law actually requires.
I have all kinds of stories about auditors claiming money is owed, when, really it was not owed because the RAC/MAC auditor failed to follow the actual, correct procedure or misconstrued a regulation. For example, I had a durable medical equipment provider, DME ABC, who was informed by the NSC Supplier Audit and Compliance Unit of Palmetto GBA that it owed $1,075,548.64. Palmetto is one of the MACs for Medicare – durable medical equipment. There was no demand letter. The alleged overpayment amount came to fruition in a telephone conference between the CEO of the company and an employee of Palmetto. Let’s call her Nancy. Nancy told CEO that company owed $1,075,548.64 based on an alleged violation of 42 C.F.R. § 424.58,
Even more disconcerting, was the fact that Palmetto claimed that its alleged, oral overpayment against DME ABC arose from a normal, reoccurring validation process pursuant to 42 C.F.R. §424.57, approved by CMS and in accordance with the requirements of 42 C.F.R. §424.58. No formal letter was necessary was Palmetto’s retort. Not correct; a formal demand letter is always required.
In this case, Palmetto began to backtrack once we pointed out that Palmetto nor Nancy ever sent a formal demand letter with any reconsideration review appeal rights or administrative appeal rights. We knew this was procedurally incorrect because federal law dictates that you receive a formal demand letter with appeal rights and notice of how many days you have to appeal. But out of fear of retribution, DME ABC was willing to write a check without pushing back. Obviously, we did not do so.
I tell this story as an example of how intimidating, scary, and overwhelming auditors can be. If someone off the street asked you for a million dollars, you would laugh them off your doorstep, right? After you tell them to don a mask and maintain social distancing.
But in the new-age world of COVID-19, rules have been broken. This behavior would not be acceptable pre-COVID-19. But this provider honestly was going to pay.
The Trump Administration is issuing an unprecedented array of temporary regulatory waivers and new rules to equip the American healthcare system with maximum flexibility to respond to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Pre-COVID-19 if you were to state “paperwork over patients,” everyone in the industry would agree. There would be snickers and eyes rolling, because no one wanted paperwork to be over patients. But it was. Now the mantra has flipped upside down – now the mantra is: Patients over Paperwork.
Post-COVID-19, if documents are lost or misplaced, or otherwise unusable, DME MACs have the flexibility to waive replacements requirements under Medicare such that the face-to-face requirement, a new physician’s order, and new medical necessity documentation are not required. Suppliers must still include a narrative description on the claim explaining the reason why the equipment must be replaced and are reminded to maintain documentation indicating that the DMEPOS was lost, destroyed, irreparably damaged or otherwise rendered unusable or unavailable as a result of the emergency.
Post-COVID-19, CMS is pausing the national Medicare Prior Authorization program for certain DMEPOS items. CMS is not requiring accreditation for newly enrolling DMEPOS and extending any expiring supplier accreditation for a 90-day time period. CMS is waiving signature and proof of delivery requirements for Part B drugs and Durable Medical Equipment when a signature cannot be obtained because of the inability to collect signatures. Suppliers should document in the medical record the appropriate date of delivery and that a signature was not able to be obtained because of COVID-19.
Post-COVID-19, in order to increase cash flow to providers impacted by COVID-19, CMS has expanded the current Accelerated and Advance Payment Program. An accelerated/advance payment is a payment intended to provide necessary funds when there is a disruption in claims submission and/or claims processing. CMS may provide accelerated or advance payments during the period of the public health emergency to any two Medicare providers/suppliers who submits a request to the appropriate MAC and meets the required qualifications. The process of obtaining the funds is a MAC-by-MAC process. Each MAC will work to review requests and issue payments within seven calendar days of receiving the request. Traditionally repayment of these advance/accelerated payments begins at 90 days, however for the purposes of the COVID-19 pandemic, CMS has extended the repayment of these accelerated/advance payments to begin 120 days after the date of issuance of the payment. Providers can get more information on this process here: www.cms.gov/files/document/Accelerated-and-Advanced-Payments-Fact-Sheet.pdf
The Future of Medicare/Medicaid Audits
The beauty of predicting the future is that no one can ever tell you that you are wrong. These are my predictions:
Auditors will deny claims for not having prior authorizations. Auditors will deny claims because the supplier accreditation expired after the 90-day time period. Auditors will deny claims because the percentage of face-to-face time was not met as described per CPT codes.
Obviously, these would be erroneous denials if the denials are within the dates that the COVID-19 pandemic occurred. The problem will be that the auditors will not be able to keep up with all the exceptions, not because the auditors are acting out of malice or dislikes providers. They will be simply trying to do their job. They will simply not be able to take into consideration all the exceptions that were given during the virus. Because, while we do have many written exceptions, if you call CMS with a personal and individualized problem, CMS will, most likely, grant you a needed exception. As long as the exception has the best interest of the consumer at heart. However, this personalized exception will not be written on CMS’s website. In five years, when you undergo a MAC or RAC audit, you better have proof that you received that exception. It will not be enough proof for you to state that you were given the exception over the phone.
So how can you protect yourself from future, erroneous audits?
Write everything down. When you speak to CMS, document concurrently the date, time, name of the person to whom you are speaking, the summary of your conversation, the COVID-19 regulatory exception, sign it and date it.
It is a hearsay exception. Writing down everything does not magically transform your note into the truth. However, writing down everything concurrently does magically allow that note that you wrote to be allowed in a court of law as an exhibit. Had you not written the note contemporaneously with the conversation that you had with CMS, then the attorney on the other side of the case would move to exclude your handwritten or typed note as hearsay.
Hearsay is defined as a statement that (1) the declarant does not make while testifying at the current trial or hearing; and (2) a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted in a statement. There are too many hearsay exceptions to name in this article.
Just know, for purposes of this article, that any health care provider who is relying on an exception to a normally required regulatory mandate – regardless what it is – either be able to: (1) cite the written exception that was published by CMS to the public; or (2) produce the written or typed contemporaneously written note that you wrote to memorialize the conversation.
A Comparison of All the #1 European Health Care Systems in the World
2 years ago – Hindsight is 20/20. #COVID19
The United States currently spends more per person on health care than any other developed country. So when my daughter and I recently vacationed the “Highlights of Europe” tour, I was interested in learning about the varied health care systems, country-by-country. We visited England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. It was awesome!! She turned 13 during the trip, and she starts 8th grade next week. Where does the time go?
While I do not protest to know all the answers, during our vacation, I researched the diverse countries’ healthcare system and methods of payment, but, most importantly, I interviewed people. I interviewed people who were begging for money. I interviewed my taxi drivers. I interviewed the bus drivers. I interviewed people on the streets. I interviewed shop owners. I interviewed the hotel concierge. I interviewed bartenders and waiters.
This blog is intended to memorialize my findings. It has not been fact checked. In other words, if a person told me something about the healthcare system and their personal experiences, I did not go back and review that country’s laws to determine whether that person was telling the truth or that the person’s rendition of their experience was compliant with the law. I did this for a reason. Sometimes what the laws dictate as to healthcare is not what actually occurs in reality. I wanted personal perspectives. I wanted an opinion from citizens of other countries as to how healthcare was or was not working in their country. I did not want to meet health care policy, rules, regulations. I wanted the cold, hard, real truth.
At least one person in every country – Austria, The Netherlands, France, England, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy told me, “[Country name] has the best health care in the world.” Obviously, they cannot all be right. And I certainly heard the worst case scenarios in country’s that claimed to be the best in the world.
This is what I learned:
ENGLAND
England has the best health care system in the world! England’s healthcare system is drastically different from the USA’s. England’s National Health Service (NHS) is a free healthcare program for all permanent residents of United Kingdom. Reading the fine print, however, the NHS is not completely free. There are charges associated with eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and many aspects of personal care.
England relies on primary care more so than specializations. Mental health services, for example, are largely treated by the general practitioners (GPs). Provider trusts, fed by taxes, compensate most health care, the main examples in the hospital trust and the ambulance trusts which send the money allocated to them by commissioning trusts. Hospitals normally receive the lion’s share of NHS funding as hospital’s have the most expenses.
Our taxi driver (Jim) told me that paperwork is minimal with the NHS, which makes it super easy to use. Although he was quick to point out that the health care system in England does vary in quality and timeliness depending on where you live, but I believe we can say the same about the USA. Jim also told me that he and his family has had problems with wait-times to be seen by specialists. Jim’s wife suffered persistent and serious acid reflux. Her general practitioner referred her to a gastroenterologist. However, she could not get an appointment until 20 weeks later. But, in the end, she was seen, and had no waiting period on the day of her appointment. Generally, Jim is happy with the NHS. The costs are minimal, and, he believes that the quality of care is high.
The hotel concierge (let’s call him Blake) was extremely open about his experiences with the health care system in England. It appears from his enthusiasm that health care is just as big of a political issue in England than it is in the US. He told me that he has never waited more than four hours in an emergency room. Apparently, his children frequent it. However, I do place an asterisk on Blake’s comment. You will see below that Alice from France waited for 7 hours at the ER in the UK with her husband. Some of the stories that I heard contradicted each other.
Blake also told me that for traumatic experiences, such a broken arm due to a car accident, which his youngest daughter recently endured, the wait time is significantly less than when his best buddy got drunk at the pub and broke his finger. Blake also told me that, for day-to-day, general, “I have a tummy ache” appointments, English citizens do not get to choose appointment times. You leave a voice mail message for the nurse and the nurse informs you when you need to present yourself. While this may sound inconvenient, Blake stated that there are no wait times. I know that I have waited many an hour to see my general practitioner.
Dental insurance, on the other hand, is a whole new can of worms. Basically, general practitioners are free, but dentists are not. The wait times to see a dentist are extensive, and, if you do not have private dental insurance, the wait times can be even longer. My take-away? If I were a dentist, I’d move the the UK. This also explains a lot about English actors and actresses.
We cannot analyze any country’s health care system without taking into account the taxes that you must pay in order to maintain such a health care system, no matter how poor or amazing that health care system is. Income taxes in the UK are 40% if you make more than 46,351 pounds. Once you hit 150,000 pounds, then your taxes increase to 45%. Almost half of your wages are taken by the government, but you get, essentially, free health care. Does it balance out?
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands has the best health care system in the world! Every person that I asked in Amsterdam, informed me that Dutch health care is among the best in the world. It seemed that the Dutch took pride in their health care system. So, I wanted details. If Dutch health care is the best, why doesn’t everyone else mimic it?
I learned that everyone who lives or works in the Netherlands is legally obligated to take out standard health insurance. All insurers offer the same standard package. The standard insurance package includes general practitioners, some medications, dental care until the age of 18, nutritional and dietary care, medical aids, mental health services, and much more. It does not cover over-the-counter aspirin or cosmetic surgery procedures. But neither does insurance in America.
In Amsterdam, my daughter and I rented bicycles for two days. It was an absolute blast. The rental process, however, took a bit longer than expected. The gentleman behind the counter needed our passport numbers, information on our hotel, credit card information, and provided us with an instruction program on how to properly secure the bicycles. Given the length of the process, I took the opportunity to ask him about health care.
Let’s call the bicycle rental agent Stefan.
Stefan explained that the Dutch believe in misery first. According to him, regardless the affliction, general practitioners will tell you to take an aspirin and come back in two weeks if you are not dead. I am fairly sure that he was exaggerating. But I have always been of the opinion that exaggerations have some form of truth.
In the Netherlands, the general practitioners are called huisarts, which are expected to know all aspects of medicine. I liken the huisarts to attorneys who practice general law. What attorney could know all aspects of family law and criminal law? The answer is none. A generalist knows a tad about everything, but nothing much about anything.
Preventive care is rare in the Netherlands, certainly in terms of women’s health. For example, in the US, France, and Spain, it is typical to get a test for cervical cancer at least every 2 to 3 years. Here, in Amsterdam, insurance will only pay for one every 5 years. Hormone replacement therapy is also rare here, as most GPs are still following outdated guidelines, based on a flawed study from 2002.
It seems as though I am overly negative as to the health care in the Netherlands. All I can write is that I began this blog with an open mind because if any country has mastered health care then we should learn from it. I was also swayed by my interviewees.
While other countries maintained high income taxes to pay for “free health care,” the Netherlands does not use tax dollars to pay for health care. Every Dutch resident is required to buy their own health insurance on top of the taxes they pay to the government.
Taxes in the Netherlands is exorbitant. If you make over 66,421 euros, taxes are 52% of your income. These taxes, remember, do not include health insurance.
In Amsterdam, there was a pub across the river from our hotel Movenpick. A group of guys were “celebrating” an upcoming wedding and were drinking bottles upon bottles of wine at the river’s edge. Multiple times members of the group ended up swimming.
So, imagine my surprise when one of the intoxicated gentlemen sat at our table and ensued with a semi-intelligent conversation about health care. We will call him Henry. Henry had recently been married and his wife gave birth last year to a premature baby. I completely related because my daughter was born at 28 weeks and 2 pounds and 2 ounces. I asked Henry about the health care coverage for his premature baby girl’s birth and subsequent surgeries. He told me that, besides the meals that he ate during the two-month stay in the hospital, once his new daughter and wife were free to leave, his hospital bill was zero. His daughter endured a two-month stay in the neonatal department, his wife had a two-month, inpatient hospital stay, his daughter underwent multiple surgeries for her lungs and heart, and his daughter had 24-hour care for 60 days. All for zero euros. All children in the Netherlands are automatically insured by the government.
While I see the downside of paying 52% of your income to the Dutch government and having to pay for health insurance, I do see the benefit of Dutch insurance if you have a medical emergency, like a premature baby.
FRANCE
France has the best health care system in the world! In a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) comparison of 191 different countries’ health care, France came out at number one. And they are not afraid to tell you. Even though the WHO ranking is from 2000, the French still tout its outcome because there have been no other such rankings since then. The French believe in the universal right to health care.
The entire population must pay compulsory health insurance.
Our two-hour ride on the Eurostar from Paris to London gave me a unique opportunity to ask other passengers about health care, especially since there is bar in one of the cabins. People congregated there to drink, eat, and talk, plus one nosy American asking about health care. The following are summaries of the stories I heard:
Nancy, who is from Devon, England and has lived in France with her family since 2006 thinks that French health care is the best. Since she moved to France her family has, unfortunately, undergone 6 operations. Her husband had cancer a couple of years ago and the Oncopole (oncologist) encouraged alternative therapies and even told him the taxi drivers (bringing patients home from the hospital) often go straight to a rebouteuse (a healer) after radiotherapy. A lot of doctors practice homeopathy, which is fantastic, according to Nancy. She also said that doctors prescribe “sacks full of medicine.” The good news is that Nancy’s husband is in remission.
Alice, a former British citizen, who moved to France told me the French health care system saved her husband’s life. Five years ago, her husband started to feel ill while visiting the UK. They couldn’t get a family/general practitioner to come to their home (I thought, my doctor wouldn’t come to my home in the US either). Over the phone, the general practitioner said, “take an aspirin and rest.” They also went to the ER but gave up after 7 hours waiting as her husband was in extreme pain (Juxtapose Blake’s recount that he never waited over 4 hours in the ER in the UK). A few days later they flew home, and her husband could not walk. Within an hour of arriving in France, her husband was admitted to a hospital. He was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney failure and stage 5 equates to dialysis. Needless to say, Alice is a French health care fan.
My daughter and I used a tour group company for our mommy-daughter vacation, and, while in France, I heard one person tout that health care is free in France. I will contend, from my travels, that French health care is great, but not completely free. I saw a presumably-homeless, elderly gentleman with no legs begging for money. In extremely, broken Frenglish and impromptu sign language, I asked the gentleman why he didn’t have health coverage and was he a French citizen? To the best of my ability, I interpreted his responses to indicate that, yes, he is a French citizen, but that free, French health care does not include prosthetics.
Taxes are approximately 41% if you make over $72,617. Whereas, in the US, if you make over $72,000 your tax bracket is 15.55%, barring extraordinary circumstances.
ITALY
Italy has the best health care system in the world! From my travels, I gathered that Italians believe that their health care system is the best (over France’s – I believe that there is a bit of a friendly rivalry). In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Italy as the 2nd best health care system in the world, right under France. In 2012, WHO found Italy’s life expectancy to be 82.3 years.
Italy has a regionally organized National Health Service (“SSN” – Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) that provides citizens with free or low-cost healthcare. It’s funded through national income taxes and regional VAT, and generally the standard of care is very high. I was pleased to discover that foreign citizens living in Italy with a regular stay permit are entitled to all the same treatment and rights as Italian citizens. Retirement 2035 – here I come!
For a country with the best health care in the world, I saw the most homeless, medically-challenged beggars than any other country. Maybe there are more homeless, medically-challenged beggars in Italy than other country because the weather is so nice, the gelato is so delicious, the population is greater, mental health care is worse, or the food is so amazing…I do not know. But I saw the most homeless, medically challenged beggars in Italy than anywhere else. Oddly, the afflictions were the same. Their feet were misshapen and curled inward to a degree that did not allow them to walk. It was heartbreaking. I googled it and discovered that medical articles have been written on the anomaly of foot deformities in southern Italy.
Taxes in Italy are as follows:
- 23% for amounts up to $36,000
- 33% for the next band from $36,001 to $39,300
- 39% for amounts between $39,301 and $119,200
- 45% for amounts $119,201 and over.
I met Valentina in Roma. Europe has strict hourly limits for bus drivers and our original bus driver, apparently, over-drove. Valentina stepped in and was very chatty, unlike the original bis driver who spoke no English. Considering our group consisted of 21 English-speaking vacationers and one couple fluent in Spanish and English, a bus driver who only spoke French was unhelpful.
Valentina told me that in Italy, mainly in the south, public hospitals are very crowded and offer very limited and sometimes hasty assistance, so that patients are too soon sent to rehabilitation centers, very few of which are public. This almost entirely private field is financially sustained by the National Health Service, which pays a per diem for a patient’s clinic stay. If a patient still needs rehabilitation after 2 months in a rehabilitation clinic or center, reimbursement from the National Health Service will be in any case cut by about 40%. Private insurance is very rare and usually is not involved in rehabilitation.
In private rehabilitation centers, physicians often have to deal with overworked nurses and angry, worried patients and relatives.
Valentina said that her mother went to her general practitioner complaining of frequent headaches, depression, anxiety, dizziness, and recurrent fatigue. Her general practitioner, diagnosed her as “a hysteric neurotic,” and she was prescribed anxiolytics. Her headaches continued. When she finally was able to see a specialist, her magnetic resonance image report showed that she had several cerebral metastatic lesions from an otherwise silent neoplasia – basically, a death sentence.
SWITZERLAND
Switzerland has the best health care system in the world! The Swiss health care system is regulated by the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance. There are no free state-provided health services, but private health insurance is compulsory for all persons residing in Switzerland (within three months of taking up residence or being born in the country) (country #2 on my options for retirement).
Like every country we visited, Switzerland has a universal health care system, requiring all to buy insurance. Switzerland holds a special place in my heart. My mother’s mother, Martha Zuin (imagine an umlaut over the ‘u’), immigrated to the US from Switzerland, so I still have family living in Switzerland.
The plans in Switzerland resemble those in the United States under the Affordable Care Act: offered by private insurance companies, community-rated and guaranteed-issue, with prices varying by things like breadth of network, size of deductible and ease of seeing a specialist. Almost 40% of people get subsidies offsetting the cost of premiums, on a sliding scale pegged to income. Although these plans are offered on a nonprofit basis, insurers can also offer coverage on a for-profit basis, providing additional services and more choice in hospitals. For these voluntary plans, insurance companies may vary benefits and premiums; they also can deny coverage to people with chronic conditions. Most doctors work on a national fee-for-service scale, and patients have considerable choice of doctors, unless they’ve selected a managed-care plan.
Both Swiss and German systems cost their countries about 11 percent of GDP.
Mia, the hotel clerk at Lake Maggiore, is a Swiss resident. She informed me that insurance premiums are not adequately adjusted to income, and they have doubled in price since 1996, while salaries have risen by just one-fifth. It comes as no surprise, then, that just over a quarter of the population needed government assistance to pay their premiums in 2014. She says that over 1/2 of Swiss residents owe money for medical bills.
You can be blacklisted from reimbursement for health insurance in Switzerland. Some 30,000 blacklisted patients so far have lost their right to be reimbursed for medical services under basic insurance and can be refused care, save for emergencies. A policy initially designed to encourage people to pay up has instead come under fire for going against the principle of basic health coverage for all. In 2017, EHR became mandatory for most, which increased the costs for many health care visits.
Research told me that Switzerland is the second most expensive country for health care other than USA with The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark closely following.
GERMANY
Germany has the best health care system in the world! The German health care system and Switzerland’s have a lot in common. According to interviewees, Germany has slightly better access to health care, especially with respect to costs. Switzerland has higher levels of cost-sharing, but its outcomes are hard to beat — arguably the best in the world – for real.
A majority of Germans (86%) get their coverage primarily though the national public system, with others choosing voluntary private health insurance. Most premiums for the public system are based on income and paid for by employers and employees, with subsidies available but capped at earnings of about $65,000. Patients have a lot of choice among doctors and hospitals, and cost sharing is quite low. It’s capped for low-income people, reduced for care of those with chronic illnesses, and nonexistent for services to children. There are no subsidies for private health insurance, but the government regulates premiums, which can be higher for people with pre-existing conditions. Private insurers charge premiums on an actuarial basis when they first enroll a customer, and subsequently raise premiums only as a function of age — not health status. Most physicians work in a fee-for-service setting based on negotiated rates, and there are limits on what they can be paid annually.
Though mostly public, the German health insurance system is not a state-run system like the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. In fact, more than 100 different health insurers, known as sickness funds, compete for members in Germany’s comparatively decentralized system. These sickness funds are non-profit, non-governmental organizations that operate autonomously. Most Germans’ health insurance contributions are deducted from their paychecks by their employers. The amount, however, is capped at 14.6% of a person’s salary, split fifty-fifty between the employer and the employee, so 7.3% each way. But coverage is not dependent on the employer, so when Germans change or lose their jobs, nothing changes in their health insurance. Recent changes in health care have allowed the wealthy to obtain higher quality and more efficient health care services. Anyone who makes over 57,600 euros/year can opt out of public health care and pay for private health care. Doctors are more prone to be more attentive of their privately-insured patients.
We met Emma at a beer garden; she was our waitress. Emma was as equally inquisitive about American health care as I was about German health care. She said that she could not get her head wrapped around HIPAA. Privacy, she indicated, is not a hot topic issue in Germany. Emma said that doctors in Germany “get it wrong a lot.” When I asked her what she meant, she said that she went to her general practitioner for chest pain. Whereas, in America, chest pain is considered serious, Emma said that her doctor did not even place a stethoscope on her chest. Instead, he told her to go home, rest, and take an Ibuprofen. Emma’s friend had a baby with a problem in one eye. She went to several doctors and they told her nothing can be done. She finally went to a specialist in Spain and received a concrete diagnostic and special glasses for the 7 month-old-baby, because the eye movement was related to the eye condition.
AUSTRIA
Austria has the best health care system in the world! If European health care were on a bell curve, Austria would be at the bottom (hmmmmm…..although I have not compared Austria to the US). Dr. Clemens Martin Auer is the President of the European Health Forum Gastein and Director General at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health.
Dr. Auer is focused on digital health and access to drugs. Talking to people in other European countries, who complained about over prescribing, Austria, apparently, has a high cost issue barring many people from receiving prescriptions.
In Austria, the health care system is largely financed by social security contributions and taxes, to a lesser part also by private sources, such as prescription charges, compulsory personal contributions, per-diem charges for hospital stays or contributions to private health insurance.
Each month a contribution will be taken from your tax payment, which is worked out according to how much you earn. This gives you access to basic healthcare including treatment in hospitals, medication, dental care, and some specialist appointments. If you make over 31,000 euros, you pay 41% tax.
According to Tobias, the man I met in Innsbruck, people wait months to see a specialist. So, if you have a cold, you are good, but of you have cancer, then get on the waiting list. Tobias also told me that people do not go to hospitals unless they have a severe injury or serious surgery. Instead, the general practitioners are heavily relied on. I am not sure I like the idea of going to a generalist for everything. If I have stark knee pain, I want to see an orthopedic, not a general internist. But I am learning that free health care may not equate to the best health care.
Knicole Emanuel Appears on the Hospital Finance Podcast – Suspension of Audits
To listen, please click here.
Highlights of this episode include:
- Background on why CMS will forego all audits unrelated to the coronavirus.
- What types of audits will CMS continue during the coronavirus pandemic?
- What providers need to know about complying with current audits, such as TPE audits.
- How providers can protect themselves by documenting exceptions such as two-day admissions.
- And more…
Mike Passanante: Hi, this is Mike Passanante and welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast®.
As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, the government has suspended most auditing activities for providers. To sort out what that means for hospitals, I’m joined by Knicole Emanuel. Knicole is an attorney at Potomac Law Group in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she concentrates on Medicare and Medicaid regulatory compliance litigation. Knicole, welcome to the show.
Knicole Emanuel: Thank you and thank you for having me.
Mike: Knicole, the government announced that it is suspending survey activities. Practically what does that mean for providers?
Knicole: Well, so right now because of the Coronavirus, CMS has decided to forego audits that are unrelated to the coronavirus. So actually effective April 3, 2020. The only audits that will be conducted will be those audits that are germane to all immediate Jeopardy complaints. Those kind of cases that represent a situation in which an entities non-compliance has placed the health and safety of recipients in its care at risk for serious injury. So we’re talking about potential serious injury or serious harm.
Another audit that’s going to continue would be complaints alleging infection control concerns because that would obviously be impacted by the coronavirus. Any sort of statutorily required recertification surveys are going to be conducted. I would assume that they’re going to be conducted telephonically. They’re not going to be going on-site and revisits necessary to resolve current enforcement actions. That’s important because when this Coronavirus all came about, there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands upon thousands of healthcare providers already in the middle of TPE audits or RAC audits or MAC audit. And they’d already had on-site visits, they’d already had maybe perhaps a lower accuracy rating. And they’re going to be stuck in this cycle of being stuck in the audit until they can get a resurvey because with this coronavirus the penalties that they’re enduring, whether it’s a suspension of admission, or whether it’s a monetary penalty. These penalties are being administered even if they cannot have a secondary or a revisit of the audit to get them off of the penalty that they’re currently on. So it’s really important that people who are in the middle of audit and when all this came down to get them off of the audit cycle so they can go back to providing care.
Mike: So essentially, there are a number of activities that are suspended. But it’s important for providers to know that there is a subset of activities that will continue even during this period.
Knicole: Correct. But they’re all going to be activities that are of the utmost importance. The items that take lower priority are going to be pushed down.
Mike: Okay, and you mentioned the TPE audits a second ago. So that’s the targeted probe and education. Are they going to continue during this time period as far as you know?
Knicole: Well, so as far as I know, they are not going to continue as in they’re not going to start new TPE audit. Now the question then becomes, “Well, I received a document request a month ago for a TPE audit. Do I need to comply now?” And the conservative safe answer is to go ahead and keep complying with these document requests. Although the deadlines for these document requests, those are going to be extended. I’m sure you’ll be able to get extensions for trying to comply with those. And in reality, if you contact the people who are conducting the audit, you may find that the entire audit in general is put on pause. But don’t assume it’s put on pause. Try to make sure you comply, unless you find out it’s on pause. And if you get something over the email or over a phone that says that your TPE audit is paused currently, follow up with an email and get it in writing. Because future audit, they’re not going to remember that your particular audit was with pause during the coronavirus.
Mike: That’s great advice, Knicole. Do you have any other recommendations for providers as they’re navigating through this time?
Knicole: Yes, I do. There are a number of providers right now that are asking for exceptions, and I can give examples. So for example, in the hospital setting, there are hospitals that are asking for waivers for the inpatient admission standards or the two-day admission, or the moon rules. All those kind of things are asking for exceptions, and a lot of the hospital, A lot of the providers are getting the exceptions they need to allow people to have to stay longer in their hospitals because they have nowhere to discharge them. They can’t go back to their nursing homes where the coronavirus may or may not be. And so, because they’re getting all these exceptions, five years from now when you’re undergoing an audit, no one is going to remember that you had this exception that this particular consumer can stay in my hospital for two extra days or five extra days. And five years from now, you may get audited and say, “Well, you got to recoup all this money because you let them stay in for too long of a time.” When in reality, you are given an exception, write all the exceptions down. Keep one place, keep a computer program, keep a hard copy, whatever you want to do, and notebook, if that you want to get down to not having any technology involved. But keep track of all of these exceptions that you get as little as they may be because if you’re getting an exception for one person, and that one person can stay longer than the two-day allowance for the outpatient stays, and you multiply that by, okay, well, now you’ve got to take that exception and extrapolate it again, 200 people over the course of a year, that’s a lot of money we’re talking about. So you need to make sure you keep track of all the exceptions, no matter how small. And keep track of them somewhere that you’re not going to lose them. If your attrition rate is high with executives, you need to make sure that the next people in line had that knowledge so that in future audit, you can explain that you did not abide by the regulations for good reason. You had an exception, but no one’s keeping track of all these exceptions.
Mike: And so, it’s great advice, Knicole. And I know you’ve got a great blog of your own that people can follow. If people wanted to read more about what’s going on here on that blog or get in touch with you, how can they do that?
Knicole: Well, you’re more than welcome to go onto my blog, which is Medicare and Medicaid law. It is at medicaidlawnc.com. You can also contact me at any time. I’m at Potomac Law Group. I help providers across the country and not only in North Carolina, but in 33 states. And so, I am pretty well versed on all the exceptions that I’m seeing. It’s really fast-paced right now. It’s scary. It’s surreal. But it is really important to make sure that everything is written down because in the future– I mean, that old saying that old adage for nurses, if it’s not written, it doesn’t exist, is really going to matter in the future years.
Mike: Knicole, thanks for adding some clarity around this very complex issue. We appreciate you coming back to the show today.
Knicole: Absolutely. Thank you.
