Federal Health Care Fraud Detection Program Raises Privacy Concerns
Federal officials recently announced a new program designed to combat fraud in the health care industry through increased sharing of billing and other information between regulatory authorities and providers. From law firm Ober | Kaler:
“In its press release, [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] noted that the program is ‘designed to share information and best practices in order to improve detection and prevent payment of fraudulent health care billings.’ Notably, the information sharing aspects of the program are intended to enable authorities to act before any payments are made with regard to potentially fraudulent schemes and to identify certain types of fraud (where, for instance, both a private and public payer are billed for the same services) that might otherwise have gone undetected until after payment was made…
Preventing fraud is a laudable goal, but data sharing and analysis at the scale contemplated, across both private and public payment structures, raises some important questions. As the program develops, and more details are made public, it will be interesting to see how concerns regarding patient privacy and data protection will be addressed.”
Read the full update, Health Law Alert: Special Focus: Fraud and Abuse: Administration Announces New Public/Private Partnership to Combat Fraud - Ober|Kaler»
