Whenever a new administration moves into the White House, it brings advisers, cabinet members and staffers to replace those appointed by the previous President. Even when the incoming ideology is 180 degrees from the one it is replacing, it takes time for the thinking of the people at the top to filter down through Congress and on to the regulators and bureaucrats who write the specific rules that implement policy.
Therefore, though great disruption is expected from the designated Secretary of Health and Human Services, it is not going to happen overnight. So it still makes sense to listen to the bureaucrats and to assume their policies and methods will be a part of the lives of healthcare at home owners and workers at least through the end of FY2017.
Home healthcare attorneys Lucian Bernard and Liz Pearson, the organizers of next month's 6th Annual Compliance Cruise Conference, attended the American Bar Association’s 2016 Health Law Summit this week and shared with us what they learned.
They report that the primary takeaway from this conference is that the Justice Department is turning its focus from fining organizations to imprisoning individuals in its quest to eliminate Medicare fraud. Here is a summary:
Attorney Bernard told us that he and Ms. Pearson will be discussing these and other matters of vital interest to home care and hospice providers during their sixth annual Compliance Cruise, January 15-22. Details are here.
"For those who have never attended one of our Compliance Cruises, we’re at sea together for a week. In addition to the group sessions, we traditionally meet one-on-one with folks on issues specific to their agencies. Nobody gets billed. Same is true for all our faculty."
©2016 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan's Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com