Washington
In March, members of the House Ways and Means Health and Oversight subcommittee convened a Medicare program integrity hearing to ask law enforcement officials what tools they needed to ramp up the fight against fraud and abuse.
While some, like Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said more funding would be helpful, HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson said the OIG was adequately funded and recovered $13 for every dollar spent.
Questions from subcommittee members also centered on whether stiffer laws were needed for criminal prosecution of suspected fraud, an idea some agreed merited further consideration.
The American Association for Homecare also weighed in with a statement, stressing “zero tolerance for Medicare fraud and abuse of any kind.”
The association cautioned against “any overgeneralizations about the home care sector” and championed more effective enforcement of the safeguards against fraud and abuse that Medicare currently has in place.
For more on AAHomecare's statement, see page 70.
