Risk Adjustment - Articles

Risk adjustment models are used by Medicare and Medicaid programs to classify patients based on the severity of their health conditions to determine the reimbursement for payers. Different types of models are used, such as HHS-HCCs, CMS-HCCs, RX-HCCs, and ESRD-HCCs, which are based on a hierarchical structure, meaning that patients are classified into categories based on the most severe condition they have. Medicaid risk adjustment models vary by state in the US, some states use their own models, while others use models developed by the CMS. These models take into account both diagnoses and procedures, and adjust the payment rates for healthcare providers based on the complexity of the care they provide.

We’ve seen a number of OIG risk adjustment data validation (RADV) audits recently where the independent review contractor was simply looking for any codes the payer reported that were not supported by the documentation, in an effort to declare an overpayment was made and monies are due to be repaid. However, it was refreshing to read this RADV audit and discover that the independent review contractor actually identified HCCs the payer failed to report that, while still resulting in an overpayment, was able to reduce the overpayment by giving credit for these additional HCCs. What lessons are you learning from reading these RADV audit reports?

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is always working on audits in a pursuit of accurate reporting and reimbursement. A recently published OIG audit report can provide great information on how to protect providers and risk adjustment payers from serious financial losses by showing exactly what the OIG is looking for and how the payer (or provider) may have defended their coding choices. In this article, you will see how the OIG audited the HCC for major depressive disorder and what Anthem did to defend its reporting.

The Department of Justice is pursuing claims of healthcare fraud against Cigna Health-Spring Medicare Advantage plan based on how they used data from their 360 Program in 2012. A review of the allegations may help other payers avoid similar accusations.

CMS recently announced the 53 Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs) that will be participating in the April 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021 Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC) Model. Among those participating is Clover Health Partners, who runs an in-home primary care program that has the potential to help Medicare ...

While audio-only telehealth services became a covered benefit during the PHE, CMS put limitations on using the data from those encounters for risk adjustment scoring. Medicare Advantage (MA) plans cannot use the information from these encounters to be scored for risk adjustment; however, it can be used for risk adjustment scoring of ACA plans.

As the OIG has published their intent to further investigate the 9.5% of improper payments based on incorrect ICD-10-CM code assignation, they implore Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) to begin employing some of the CMS tools and data analytic programs used to help identify outliers.

Between June 2019 and June 2020, the United States saw a total of 107,750 deaths from COVID-19. The spread of this virus was so extraordinary that it led President Trump to declare a public health emergency, and we watched as individual states began implementing laws and regulations to limit social interaction ...

Identifying new ways to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to schedule and attend their Annual Wellness Exam (AWE) can be difficult, but the Open Enrollment period is a prime time for every payer to identify new beneficiaries and provide a reminder to both new and existing patients that this preventive service does ...