New policy a boon for HCFA debtors
August 1, 1998 less than 1 minute read
New policy a boon for HCFA debtors
A recent policy memo from the Health Care Financing Administration to its outside fiscal intermediaries will help those providers who are trying to work out a plan to pay back any Medicare overpayments they have received.
The memo was in reaction to complaints from a growing number of providers claiming that their proposals for an extended repayment plan were being routinely rejected by HCFA's outside contractors. Providers said that contractors had taken an informal policy position holding that anticipated funds from current Medicare claims could not be used to settle outstanding overpayments.
These refusals placed the providers in a financial jam, because many of them could not afford to return the Medicare overpayments out of their commercial patients' cash flow.
The problem with the policy instituted by these intermediaries is that "HCFA does not have a recovery policy that requires providers to demonstrate their ability to repay a Medicare debt with non-Medicare money," says Charles R. Booth, director of HCFA's financial services group.
Booth further clarified this position in an internal memo to HCFA regional offices, reminding them that "when a provider submits a request for an extended repayment schedule, the [fiscal intermediary] should consider all sources of funds available to the provider from which repayment may be made."
In turn, when Medicare intermediaries attempt in the future to determine a provider's ability to settle a Medicare overpayment, revenues from non-Medicare claims is only one of the factors to be considered, the memo noted.
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