UPDATE: OIG Issues First Three Reports from Onsite Audits of Hospital Error Prone Billing Issues

On May 4, 2011, we issued a bulletin alerting hospital clients that the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) Office of Audit Services was in the process of sending numerous Contact Letters to hospitals across the country in an effort to verify their levels of compliance with Medicare billing requirements.  As part of this audit, the OIG planned to conduct on-site reviews of “known areas of compliance” related to hospital inpatient and outpatient claims with dates of service from the last several years.  These OIG Contact Letters suggested that this audit was rather open-ended and focused on a large number of past hospital billing compliance matters previously identified through OIG Work Plans and audits.