Expect stepped-up scrutiny of your claims by payment and fraud contractors following a new report by the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The OIG’s analysis of 2008 home health claims found that 22% were submitted in error, for the most part because they were coded inaccurately. Altogether, those errors caused $432 million in improper Medicare payments.

CMS will share the report’s findings with its contractors “to consider as they determine where to focus resources in the future,” the federal Medicare agency says in its response to the report.

OIG extrapolated its findings from a sample of medical records for 495 beneficiaries admitted to home health. But by emphasizing coding errors, the report seems less than even-handed.

What the report only mentions in passing is that 98% of the beneficiaries reviewed “met the homebound requirement and needed skilled nursing care or therapy services and  . . . were under the care of a physician.”

That shows agencies “are doing a fairly good job in determining Medicare coverage in spite of all the allegations of home health fraud and abuse,” says Bill Dombi, VP for law with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

Editor's note: For more on the report and what its findings mean for home health, read the March 19 issue of HHL.