HCFA and the OIG's expanded enforcement of the anti-dumping law is taking all kinds of twists and turns, and you want to prepare your physicians and hospital for them, says Los Angeles attorney Lowell Brown.
Education is the key.
All it takes is one person to make a mistake at 3 a.m. For example, it warned against hospitals delaying medical treatment while trying to get preauthorization from a patient's health plan. All you can really do is politely refuse to discuss insurance or payment and document it. Documentation is all you will have to show that your hospital did not in any way take payment into consideration when treating the patient - even if that is more than the law contemplated, Brown says. Your hospital gets an offer it can't refuse.