Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog

The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services recently published on its website, “A Roadmap for New Physicians — Avoiding Medicare and Medicaid Fraud and Abuse.”  This publication was the result of a survey done by the OIG to learn what types of instruction medical students, residents, and fellows receive on Medicare and Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse.  Both the Roadmap and the survey, along with the enhanced fraud and abuse and compliance provisions of the Healthcare Reform Act, clearly demonstrate the importance of these issues to the government.   It is too late to try to fix a long ignored compliance problem at a physician’s office when the men and women with badges and guns are at the door.