Exclusion Screening, LLC has been chronicling the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) interest in exclusion enforcement for quite some time. Hence, yesterday’s announcement that the OIG created a special litigation unit focusing on Civil Money Penalties (CMP) and Exclusions comes as no surprise to us.
Only two weeks ago we published an article on the OIG’s increasing enforcement efforts. In that article we concluded that: “The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that OIG’s involvement in exclusion enforcement is increasing… [with] enforcement interest and involvement spread throughout the agency….” This followed a January article discussing increasing enforcement in 2014.
There has been no formal announcement on the agency website. Therefore, the details of the unit are not yet known. On June 30, 2015, at the annual meeting of the American Health Lawyers Association, it was announced that the unit was actually formed in March. However, it is not yet fully staffed.
Need to know more about what your organization needs to do in terms of screening for exclusions? Call Exclusion Screening at 1-800-294-0952 or fill out the form below for more information and to hear how Exclusion Screening can save your organization from civil monetary penalties.
Paul Weidenfeld, Co-Founder and CEO of Exclusion Screening, LLC, is the author of this article. He is a longtime healthcare lawyer whose practice has focused on False Claims Act cases and health care fraud matters generally. Contact Paul should you have any questions at: pweidenfeld@exclusionscreening.com or 1-800-294-0952.