Guest Columns: Spreading the wealth to long-term care

Because new Medicare reimbursement policies are focusing on quality of care at nursing homes, compliance officers will have a greater role in ensuring accurate documentation of care, one medical official said, according to a news report.

Health officials and the Department of Health and Human Services’ legal counsel talked about the changing and growing role of compliance officers in the field of healthcare at a recent Health Care Compliance Association meeting, the Bureau of National Affairs reported. Compliance officers’ experience in billing and coding could be easily transferred to the area of quality-of-care forms, said Rory Jaffe, executive director of medical services and the University of California. He added that physicians and care workers will need to learn the appropriate language from compliance officers to best fill out the claims forms.

While the Office of the Inspector General is concentrated on financial fraud, it still views quality of care as essential to any healthcare system, said Chief Counsel Lewis Morris, of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to BNA.