Practice Management
An urgent care center in Oxford, MS had to tell some 58,000 patients their personal health and credit card information may have been compromised in a “ransomware” attack—after the operator also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to the cyber pirates who carried out the act. Concerns started when computer systems started running dramatically slower without explanation. Soon after, the servers were completely taken over by parties beyond the clinic’s walls; control was not restored …
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The case of a Canton, MI urgent care provider charged with 22 counts of medical fraud should serve as a cautionary tale and a reminder that unethical (or even just plain sloppy) billing practices can land operators, office staff, and physicians in hot water—or even jail. The physician in the Michigan case stands accused of billing Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield for services he didn’t provide, resulting in nine counts of Medicaid fraud, 12 …
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Physicians and nurses were charged along with business owners after the Department of Justice moved in on scores of clinics that were allegedly involved in fraudulently collecting fees from Medicare and Medicaid. The DOJ says more than 300 people were charged in healthcare fraud schemes involving $900 million in false billings. Sixty suspects were allegedly linked to schemes involving Medicare Part D, which is the fastest-growing component of Medicare, overall. According to court documents, the …
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URGENT MESSAGE: Effective October 1, 2015, businesses that accept credit and debit cards can be responsible for fraud charges if they do not implement technology that reads the microchip-enabled cards now being issued by banks. Urgent care operators should work with their credit card processors to assure compliance through use of upgraded equipment that is compatible with their practice management systems. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent …
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