The United States Office of Inspector General maintains a list that contains persons and entities that are banned from working for any program which receives federal health care dollars, including most prominently Medicaid or Medicare.
If any healthcare provider hires an employee or subcontractor from this list, they can not be paid any federal money, even for work not associated with the employee or subcontractor, and there can be penalties. It doesn’t matter that you had no knowledge about the list or the fact that the person or entity was on the list.
As stated by the OIG: “OIG’s List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE) provides information to the health care industry, patients and the public regarding individuals and entities currently excluded from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and all other Federal health care programs. Individuals and entities who have been reinstated are removed from the LEIE.”
This Special Advisory Bulletin describes the effect of exclusion. If a healthcare provider discovers an excluded individual or entity in their midst, they must self report in order to avoid penalties under the anti-kickback statute and the physician self-referral (“Stark”) law. The moral is: Before you hire an employee or subcontractor, check the list.
Make sure that your application for employment and the contract with the subcontractor provides self-disclosures by the individuals and entities if they have ever been on the LEIE and that you have the necessary information to check the list.
Here’s the link: “List of Excluded Individuals and Entities.”
Written by Matthew L. Kinley