By: Visiting Nurse Associations of America on 12/10/2014
Last week USA Today published an article examining the rise of physician home visits in Michigan and possible fraudulent visits. The article found that one fifth of all Medicare spending on home visits occurs in Michigan, and according to their analysis, it resulted “more than $60 million in fraudulent billing by Michigan doctors in the past few years.”
As a follow up to the article, USA Today published a number of letters to the editor crticial of the approach presented by their analysis. Steve Landers, president and CEO of VNAA Associate Member Visiting Nurse Association Health Group; Red Bank, N.J., was included in the opinions published. He stated, “USA TODAY’s article “Medicare house calls, fraud on rise” missed the chance to inform the public about this critical opportunity to help America’s seniors. Instead, it focused on a worrisome but narrow issue of aberrant billing for physician home visits in Michigan.” He went on to say that while fraud is an important issue, “but implying that home visits contribute more to fraud than other services is misleading, especially when they represent such a small portion of overall spending.” Read the full text of his letter and others here.