Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General

On June 12, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report with the objective of determining whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made proper incentive payments to providers for “meaningful use” of a certified electronic health record (EHR).  The report, entitled “Medicare Paid Hundreds of Millions in Electronic Health Record Incentive Payments That Did not Comply with Federal Requirements,” estimates that CMS improperly paid $729 million in EHR incentive payments to providers who did not actually comply with the requirements of meaningful use.

On January 6, 2017, several new regulatory exceptions to the beneficiary inducement statute went into effect. These regulations, published by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) in a final rule dated December 7, 2016,1 bring long awaited closure to many of the outstanding issues raised in the statutory versions of the exceptions implemented by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and in the proposed regulations issued by the OIG on October 3, 2014.2 Several exceptions that may be of particular interest to children’s hospitals are highlighted below.