Blog Archives
Laboratories Are Under Scrutiny by OIG and State Medicaid!
Laboratories are under scrutiny by the OIG and State Medicaid Departments. Labs get urine samples from behavioral health care companies, substance abuse companies, hospitals, and primary care facilities, who don’t have their own labs. Owners of labs entrust their lab executives to follow procedure on a federal and/or state level for Medicare or Medicaid. Well, what if they don’t. For example, one client paid a urine collector/courier by the mile. That courier service collected urine from Medicaid consumers in NC, sometimes in excess of 90 times a year, when Medicaid only allows 24 per year. I have about 10-15 laboratory clients at the present.
Another laboratory’s urine collector collected the urine, but never brought the urine back to get tested. To which I ponder, where did all those urine specimens go?
Another laboratory had a standing order for over 6 years to test presumptive and definitive testing on 100% of urine samples.
OIG has smelled fraud within laboratories and is widening its search for fraudsters. Several laboratories are undergoing the most serious audits in existence. Not RAC, MAC, or UPIC audits, but audits of even more importance. They received CIDs or civil investigative demands from their State Medicaid Divisions. These requests, like RAC, MAC, or UPIC audits, request lots of documents. In fact, CIDs are legally allowed to request documents for a much longer period of time than RACs, which can only request 3 years back. Most CIDs are fishing for false claims under the False Claims Act (FCA). Stark and Anti-Kickback violations are also included in these investigations. While civil penalties can result in high monetary penalties, criminal violations result in jail time.
As everyone knows, labs must follow CLIA or be CLIA certified, which is the federal standard for which labs. The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) of 1988 (42 USC 263a) and the associated regulations (42 CFR 493) provide the authority for certification and oversight of clinical laboratories and laboratory testing. Under the CLIA program, clinical laboratories are required to have the appropriate certificate before they can accept human samples for testing. There are different types of CLIA certificates, as well as different regulatory requirements, based on the types and complexity of clinical laboratory tests a laboratory conducts. CLIA, like CMS, has its own set of rules. When entities like CLIA or CMS have their own rules, sometimes those rules juxtapose law, which creates a conundrum for providers. If you own a lab, do you follow CLIA rules or CMS rules or the law? Let me give you an example. According to CLIA, you must maintain documentation regarding samples and testing for two years. So, if CLIA audits a laboratory, the audits requests will only go back for two years. Well, that’s all fine and dandy. Except according to the law, you have to maintain medical documents for 5 or 6 years, depending on the service type.
Recently, one of my labs received a CID for records going back to 2017. That is a 6-year lookback. Had the lab followed CLIA’s rules, the lab would only have documentation going back to 2021. Had the lab followed CLIA’s rules, when OIG knocked on its door, it would have NOT had four years of OIG’s request. Now I do not know, because I have never been in the position that my lab client only retained records for two years…thank goodness. If I were in the position, I would argue that the lab was following CLIA’s rules. But that’s the thing, rules are not laws. When in doubt, follow laws, not rules.
However, that takes me to Medicare provider appeals of RAC, MAC, and UPIC audits. Everything under the umbrella of CMS must follow CMS rules. Remember how I said that rules are not laws? CMS rules, sometimes, contradict law. Yet when a Medicare provider appeals an overpayment or termination, the first four levels of appeal are mandated to follow CMS rules. It is not until the 5th level, which is the federal district court that law prevails. In other words, the RAC, MAC, or UPIC, the 2nd level QIC, the 3rd level ALJ, and the 4th level Medicare Appeal Council, all must follow CMS rules. It is not until you appear before the federal district judge that law prevails.
Receiving a CID does not mean that your investigation will remain civil. Most investigations begin civilly. If the evidence uncovered demonstrates any criminal activity, your civil investigation can quickly turn criminal. I co-defend with a federal criminal attorney if the case has a chance to turn criminal. Believe me, there is a huge difference between federal and state criminal lawyers! Even with the best federal criminal lawyers, you want a Medicare and Medicaid expert lawyer on the team to dispute the regulatory accusations that a criminal attorney may not be as well-versed. I am so thankful that I moved my practice to Nelson Mullins, because we have a huge, yet highly-specialized health care practice. While we have a large number of lawyers, each partner specializes in slightly different aspects of health care. So, when I need a federal criminal attorney to partner-up with me, I just walk down the hall.
Laboratories: Beware! Be ready! Be prepared! Be lawyered up!
A New Associate Joins Practus’ Health Care Team: Ryan Hargrave!!
Attorney Ryan Hargrave joined the Practus Health Care Litigation team on June 1, 2022. Ryan comes from a career of litigation in the State of North Carolina. He began his career in 2016 as a Prosecutor for the State of North Carolina, Guilford County. There he gained valuable experience from which he used as he moved to defending clients. He served as the Lead Trial Attorney at Triad Legal Group before joining Graystar Legal as the Senior Associate Attorney.
Ryan obtained his undergraduate degree at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC., where he received a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Biology. Ryan has always had a keen interest in health care which has followed him throughout his career. He is locally known as the “Drug Lawyer” for his focus in the defense of drug-related crimes. He has a reputable proficiency in Cannabis Law, Criminal Law, and Civil Law across State and Federal Courts. Ryan has extensive trial experience that he brings to the Health Care Litigation team at Practus.
Ryan lives in North Carolina with his family, spending his time working out, making financial investments, and beginning his non-profit business, “Colored Money”. His non-profit will focus on teaching young boys and girls the value of money as a vehicle to achieve wealth, making smart investments, and how to achieve financial freedom. He is a big Georgia football fan and even has an English Bulldog that could serve as the team’s mascot.
Note from me:
I expect Ryan to dovetail and expand my Medicare and Medicaid regulatory compliance practice because his litigation experience will directly help me in litigation natters, but, also, his criminal litigation experience will also allow us to represent more White Collar Crime clients, including Medicare and Medicaid fraud accusations, False Claims Act, Stark, and Anti-Kickback alleged violations.
We are happy that he is here!
New Revisions to Stark Law: Beware the “Per-Click Lease” – Maybe?
Scenario: You have an arrangement with your local hospital. You are a urologist and your practice owns a laser machine. You lease your laser machine to Hospital A, and your lease allows you to receive additional, but fair market value, money depending on how often your machine is used. Legal?
A new Final Ruling from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provides murky guidance.
CMS finalized the 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) rule, which took effect on January 1, 2017. There have been few major revisions to the Stark Law since 2008…until now. The Stark Law is named for United States Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), who sponsored the initial bill in 1988. Politicians love to name bills after themselves!
Absent an exception, the Stark Law prohibits a physician from referring Medicare patients for certain designated health services (“DHS”), for which payment may be made under Medicare, to any “entity” with which the physician (or an immediate family member) has a “financial relationship.” Conversely, the statute prohibits the DHS-furnishing entity from filing claims with Medicare for those referred services.
Despite the general prohibition on potentially self-interested referrals, the Stark Law permits Medicare referrals by physicians to entities in which they have a financial interest in certain limited circumstances. But these circumstances are limited and must be followed precisely and without deviation.
These exceptions are created by legally excluding some forms of compensation agreements and ownership interests from the definition of “financial relationship,” thus allowing both the relationships and the referrals. See 42 U.S.C. § 1395nn(b)-(e).
One of such exceptions to the Stark Law is the equipment lease exception.
This equipment lease exception to Stark law allows a financial relationship between physicians and hospitals for the lease of equipment, only if the lease (1) is in writing; (2) assigns the use of the equipment exclusively to the hospital; (3) lasts for a term of at least one year; (4) sets rental charges in advance that are consistent with fair market value and “not determined in a manner that takes into account the volume or value of any referrals or other business generated between the parties”; (5) satisfies the standard of commercial reasonableness even absent any referrals; and (6) meets “such other requirements as the Secretary may impose by regulation as needed to protect against program or patient abuse.”
For example, like the scenario above, a urology group owns and leases a laser machine to Hospital A. As long as the lease meets the criteria listed above, the urologists may refer Medicare patients to Hospital A to their hearts’ content – even though the urologists benefit financially from their own referrals.
However, what if the monetary incentive is tied to the amount the machine is actually used – or the “per-click lease?”
In a court case decided in January 2015, Council for Urological Interests v. Burwell, a D.C. circuit court decided that CMS’ ban on per-click leases was unreasonable.
In CMS’ Final Ruling, effective January 1, 2017, CMS again re-issued the per-click lease ban. But CMS’ revised ban appears to be more parochial in scope. CMS states that it “did not propose and [is] not finalizing an absolute prohibition on rental charges based on units of service furnished” and that “[i]n general, per-unit of service rental charges for the rental of office space or equipment are permissible.” As CMS had previously stated, the per-click ban applies only “to the extent that such charges reflect services provided to patients referred by the lessor to the lessee.”
Considering how unclear the Final Rule is – We are banning per-click leases, but not absolutely – expect lawsuits to clarify. In the meantime, re-visit your equipment leases. Have your attorney review for Stark compliance – because for the first time since 2008, major amendments to Stark Law became effective January 1, 2017.
