The Context for Quality Fraud
The fraud and abuse liabilities which lurk in inadequate quality performance have been highlighted on this website since 2003 with an AGG Note and later Alice's article in The Journal of Health Care Compliance, “Doing What Matters.” From Jim Sheehan’s first public statements on his priorities regarding quality enforcement, to the first OIG settlement based on quality failures, to Sheehan’s 2006 PowerPoint enumerating the many ways in which quality will be the foundation for fraud enforcement, the weight of punitive attention is increasing. Now, with the OIG's published statements regarding Board responsibility for quality in hospital, and a major initiative on nursing home quality performance beginning with a joint publication with the Health Care Compliance Association the pace of the inexorable moves in this direction has quickened considerably. Those who ignore the risks do so at their own peril.