Hospice fraud in South Carolina and the United States is an increasing problem as the number of hospice patients has exploded over the past few years. From 2004 to 2008, the number of patients receiving hospice care in the United States grew almost 40% to nearly 1.5 million, and of the 2.5 million people who died in 2008, nearly one million were hospice patients. The overwhelming majority of people receiving hospice care receive federal benefits from the federal government through the Medicare or Medicaid programs. The health care providers who provide hospice services traditionally enroll in the Medicare and Medicaid programs in order to qualify to receive payments under these government programs for services rendered to Medicare and Medicaid eligible patients.

While most hospice health care organizations provide appropriate and ethical treatment for their hospice patients, because hospice eligibility under Medicare and Medicaid involves clinical judgments which may result in the payments of large sums of money from the federal government, there are tremendous opportunities for fraudulent practices and false billing claims by unscrupulous hospice care providers. As recent federal hospice fraud enforcement actions have demonstrated, the number of health care companies and individuals who are willing to try to defraud the Medicare and Medicaid hospice benefits programs is on the rise.

A recent example of hospice fraud involving a South Carolina hospice is Southern Care, Inc., a hospice company that in 2009 paid $24.7 million to settle an FCA case. The defendant operated hospices in 14 other states, too, including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The alleged frauds were that patients were not eligible for hospice, to wit, were not terminally ill, lack of documentation of terminal illnesses, and that the company marketed to potential patients with the promise of free medications, supplies, and the provision of home health aides. Southern Care also entered into a 5-year Corporate Integrity Agreement with the OIG as part of the settlement. The qui tam relators received almost $5 million.

Understanding the Consequences of Hospice Fraud and Whistleblower Actions

U.S. and South Carolina consumers, including hospice patients and their family members, and health care employees who are employed in the hospice industry, as well as their SC lawyers and attorneys, should familiarize themselves with the basics of the hospice care industry, hospice eligibility under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and hospice fraud schemes that have developed across the country. Consumers need to protect themselves from unethical hospice providers, and hospice employees need to guard against knowingly or unwittingly participating in health care fraud against the federal government because they may subject themselves to administrative sanctions, including lengthy exclusions from working in an organization which receives federal funds, enormous civil monetary penalties and fines, and criminal sanctions, including incarceration. When a hospice employee discovers fraudulent conduct involving Medicare or Medicaid billings or claims, the employee should not participate in such behavior, and it is imperative that the unlawful conduct be reported to law enforcement and/or regulatory authorities. Not only does reporting such fraudulent Medicare or Medicaid practices shield the hospice employee from exposure to the foregoing administrative, civil and criminal sanctions, but hospice fraud whistleblowers may benefit financially under the reward provisions of the federal False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3732, by bringing false claims suits, also known as qui tam or whistleblower suits, against their employers on behalf of the United States.

Types of Hospice Care Services

Hospice care is a type of health care service for patients who are terminally ill. Hospices also provide support services for the families of terminally ill patients. This care includes physical care and counseling. Hospice care is normally provided by a public agency or private company approved by Medicare and Medicaid. Hospice care is available for all age groups, including children, adults, and the elderly who are in the final stages of life. The purpose of hospice is to provide care for the terminally ill patient and his or her family and not to cure the terminal illness.

If a patient qualifies for hospice care, the patient can receive medical and support services, including nursing care, medical social services, doctor services, counseling, homemaker services, and other types of services. The hospice patient will have a team of doctors, nurses, home health aides, social workers, counselors and trained volunteers to help the patient and his or her family members cope with the symptoms and consequences of the terminal illness. While many hospice patients and their families can receive hospice care in the comfort of their home, if the hospice patient's condition deteriorates, the patient can be transferred to a hospice facility, hospital, or nursing home to receive hospice care.

Hospice Care Statistics

The number of days that a patient receives hospice care is often referenced as the "length of stay" or "length of service." The length of service is dependent on a number of different factors, including but not limited to, the type and stage of the disease, the quality of and access to health care providers before the hospice referral, and the timing of the hospice referral. In 2008, the median length of stay for hospice patients was about 21 days, the average length of stay was about 69 days, almost 35% of hospice patients died or were discharged within 7 days of the hospice referral, and only about 12% of hospice patients survived longer than 180 days.

Most hospice care patients receive hospice care in private homes (40%). Other locations where hospice services are provided are nursing homes (22%), residential facilities (6%), hospice inpatient facilities (21%), and acute care hospitals (10%). Hospice patients are generally the elderly, and hospice age group percentages are 34 years or less (1%), 35 - 64 years (16%), 65 - 74 years (16%), 75 - 84 years (29%), and over 85 years (38%). As for the terminal illness resulting in a hospice referral, cancer is the diagnosis for almost 40% of hospice patients, followed by debility unspecified (15%), heart disease (12%), dementia (11%), lung disease (8%), stroke (4%) and kidney disease (3%). Medicare pays the great majority of hospice care expenses (84%), followed by private insurance (8%), Medicaid (5%), charity care (1%) and self pay (1%).

As of 2008, there were approximately 4,700 locations which were providing hospice care in the United States, which represented about a 50% increase over ten years. There were about 3,700 companies and organizations which were providing hospice services in the United States. About half of the hospice care providers in the United States are for-profit organizations, and about half are non-profit organizations.
General Overview of the Medicare and Medicaid Programs

In 1965, Congress established the Medicare Program to provide health insurance for the elderly and disabled. Payments from the Medicare Program arise from the Medicare Trust fund, which is funded by government contributions and through payroll deductions from American workers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), is the federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer Medicaid.

In 2007, CMS reorganized its ten geography-based field offices to a Consortia structure based on the agency's key lines of business: Medicare health plans, Medicare financial management, Medicare fee for service operations, Medicaid and children's health, survey & certification and quality improvement. The CMS consortia consist of the following:

• Consortium for Medicare Health Plans Operations
• Consortium for Financial Management and Fee for Service Operations
• Consortium for Medicaid and Children's Health Operations
• Consortium for Quality Improvement and Survey & Certification Operations

Each consortium is led by a Consortium Administrator (CA) who serves as the CMS's national focal point in the field for their business line. Each CA is responsible for consistent implementation of CMS programs, policy and guidance across all ten regions for matters pertaining to their business line. In addition to responsibility for a business line, each CA also serves as the Agency's senior management official for two or three Regional Offices (ROs), representing the CMS Administrator in external matters and overseeing administrative operations.

Much of the daily administration and operation of the Medicare Program is managed through private insurance companies that contract with the Government. These private insurance companies, sometimes called "Medicare Carriers" or "Fiscal Intermediaries," are charged with and responsible for accepting Medicare claims, determining coverage, and making payments from the Medicare Trust Fund. These carriers, including Palmetto Government Benefits Administrators (hereinafter "PGBA"), a division of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina, operate pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1395h and 1395u and rely on the good faith and truthful representations of health care providers when processing claims.

Over the past forty years, the Medicare Program has enabled the elderly and disabled to obtain necessary medical services from medical providers throughout the United States. Critical to the success of the Medicare Program is the fundamental concept that health care providers accurately and honestly submit claims and bills to the Medicare Trust Fund only for those medical treatments or services that are legitimate, reasonable and medically necessary, in full compliance with all laws, regulations, rules, and conditions of participation, and, further, that medical providers not take advantage of their elderly and disabled patients.

The Medicaid Program is available only to certain low-income individuals and families who must meet eligibility requirements set forth by federal and state law. Each state sets its own guidelines regarding eligibility and services. Although administered by individual states, the Medicaid Program is funded primarily by the federal government. Medicaid does not pay money to patients; rather, it sends payments directly to the patient's health care providers. Like Medicare, the Medicaid Program depends on health care providers to accurately and honestly submit claims and bills to program administrators only for those medical treatments or services that are legitimate, reasonable and medically necessary, in full compliance with all laws, regulations, rules, and conditions of participation, and, further, that medical providers not take advantage of their indigent patients.

Medicare & Medicaid Hospice Laws Which Affect SC Hospices

Hospice fraud occurs when hospice organizations, by and through their employees, agents and owners, knowingly violate the terms and conditions of the applicable Medicare and Medicaid hospice statutes, regulations, rules and conditions of participation. In order to be able to recognize hospice fraud, hospices, hospice patients, hospice employees and their attorneys and lawyers must know the Medicare laws and requirements relating to hospice care benefits.

Medicare's two main sources of authorization for hospice benefits are found in the Social Security Act and the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. The statutory provisions are primarily found at 42 U.S.C. §§ 1395d, 1395e, 1395f(a)(7), 1395x(d)(d), and 1395y, and the regulatory provisions are found at 42 C.F.R. Part 418. More here criminal attorneys near me https://www.polsonlawfirm.com/

To be eligible for Medicare benefits for hospice care, the patient must be eligible for Medicare Part A and be terminally ill. 42 C.F.R. § 418.20. Terminal illness is established when "the individual has a medical prognosis that his or her life expectancy is 6 months or less if the illness runs its normal course." 42 C.F.R. § 418.3; 42 U.S.C. § 1395x(d)(d)(3). The patient's physician and the medical director of the hospice must certify in writing that the patient is "terminally ill." 42 U.S.C. § 1395f(a)(7); 42 C.F.R. § 418.20. After a patient's initial certification, Medicare provides for two ninety-day benefit periods followed by an unlimited number of sixty-day benefit periods. 42 U.S.C. § 1395d(a)(4). At the end of each ninety- or sixty-day period, the patient can be re-certified only if at that time he or she has less than six months to live if the illness runs its normal course. 42 U.S.C. § 1395f(a)(7)(A). The written certification and re-certifications must be maintained in the patient's medical records. 42 C.F.R. § 418.23. A written plan of care must be established for each patient setting forth the types of hospice care services the patient is scheduled to receive, 42 U.S.C. § 1395f(a)(7)(B), and the hospice care has to be provided in accordance with such plan of care. 42 U.S.C. § 1395f(a)(7)(C); 42 C.F.R. § 418.56. Clinical records for each hospice patient must be maintained by the hospice, including plan of care, assessments, clinical notes, signed notice of election, patient responses to medication and therapy, physician certifications and re-certifications, outcome data, advance directives and physician orders. 42 C.F.R. § 418.104.