Venops has announced the release of a new service called Instant Check. Instant Check offers Venops’ members a new way to instantly check the Office of Inspector General (OIG) List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE).
A new benefit of Venops’ exclusion screening software service, Instant Check allows for the immediate screening of the LEIE and Medicare opt out affidavits. Instead of preparing a lengthy spreadsheet, members can now simply enter in a name for instant OIG exclusion liability clearance.
“Instant Check will save our clients and members a lot of time and money while ensuring that all new hires and vendors are not excluded from government medical insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid,” said Venops President Michael Kleinpeter, Ed.D.
Founded in 2014, Marietta, Georgia-based Venops assists medical practices with regulatory compliance. Venops CEO Mark Maloney shared with OTW that the idea for Instant Check came from user surveys and related data. From its research, Venops realized that administrators needed an efficient way to fulfill the OIG compliance requirement.
Additional inspiration for the service came from Kleinpeter’s first-hand experience with an OIG investigation. According to Maloney, Kleinpeter “went through a multi-million dollar OIG investigation and saw first-hand how expensive and time-consuming it could be.”
The OIG imposes exclusions pursuant to sections 1128 and 1156 of the Social Security Act. An exclusion under section 1128 applies to all federal health care programs including Medicare and Medicaid. An exclusion under section 1156 applies to Medicare and all state health care programs.
An exclusion prohibits payment by the federal or state health care program for any item or service provided by the excluded person or entity. In both instances, the payment prohibition is broadly applied. It includes the excluded person, the excluded person’s employer, anyone who contracts with the excluded person, and anyone else. It also includes any hospital or other provider for which the excluded person provides services.
A person or entity that attempts to recover payment for services performed by an individual on the OIG LEIE can face penalties. Fines for exclusion screening violations are significant.
