HomeCare September 9, 2022
WASHINTON, D.C. (September 9, 2022)—More than 1,700 Medicare providers have indications that they fraudulently billed Medicare for telehealth services, according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG). These providers billed telehealth services for about half a million beneficiaries and received a total of $127.7 million in Medicare fee-for-service payments.
The OIG looked at claims data from 742,000 providers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 1, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021. HHS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) took action to temporarily expand access to telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, CMS temporarily paused several program integrity activities, including medical reviews of claims....