OIG Releases Report on Long Term Care Payments

On December 22, 2010, the Office of Inspector General ("OIG") released a report which examined billing trends of skilled nursing facilities ("SNFs") from 2006-2008. The purpose of the report was to determine if certain services had higher utilization rates over the span of the 2 years, to see if ownership differences existed from 2006 to 2008, and to identify SNFs with questionable billing practices in 2008.

Among its findings, the OIG determined that higher-paying rehabilitation-related resource utilization groups ("RUGs") were billed in 2008 than in 2006, and that this trend correlated positively with for-profit status, whereas not-for-profit or government-owned SNFs were less likely to bill for the higher-paying RUGs. The OIG also found that for-profit SNFs had longer lengths of stay than other SNFs, and that the longer lengths of stay were not related to the types of populations in the various different types of SNFs.

For a copy of the OIG Report, go to http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-02-09-00202.pdf. If you have questions or require additional information, contact Susan Ziel at (317) 238-6244 or sziel@kdlegal.com.