A pain management practice will pay $625k from a False Claims Act violation. Similar cases give an importance to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse (FWA) protection, and the use of E/M codes would have detected an abnormality on similar claims. Read more to find out how.

A Maine family practitioner used false claims billed to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were either not provided or not medically necessary, which provides reasons for the need of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse (FWA) protection.

A multi-million dollar scheme serves as a prime example to the benefits of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse (FWA) protection. The story of a doctor performing an alarmingly high amount of surgeries not typically conducted by their specialty is awakening to the need for robust safeguarding solutions.

On May 19, 2021, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPac) provided feedback to Congress regarding their opinions on the effectiveness of the overwhelming 200 healthcare policy changes that Congress and CMS instituted during the interval of January through July 2020, in response to the coronavirus public health emergency. Aside from the obvious and necessary benefits of these changes in response to the pandemic, MedPac raises concerns about the detrimental impact in the realm of fraud in healthcare: “…not all actors in the healthcare system are well-intentioned”.

Relaxed telehealth restrictions is a necessary step to limit potential COVID-19 exposure in physician offices in the emergency period. With this change, unfortunately, the US Justice Department estimates telehealth-related fraud has expanded significantly since early 2020 – approximated at 4.5 billion dollars.