Opinion : Des Moines Register Series on Healthcare Misleading

April 23rd an article written by Clark Kauffmann of the Des Moines Register wished to make readers believe that Home Healthcare in the state of Iowa has no oversight, which is just ridiculous.

The Virginia Gay Hospital Home Health Agency was inspected by the State Department of Inspections and Appeals in 2010, 2007, 2003, and 2000.  The State conducts these to verify that we meet the stringent conditions of participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  Failing one of these inspections could cause expulsion from the programs which means no payment. So the claim made by the author that home health agencies “are subject to no regulatory oversight” is just plain wrong and I think meant to intentionally mislead the readers. 

The Virginia Gay Hospital Home Health Agency and most like us have checks and balances for billing. We recently had a post payment audit from Medicaid on a client and two months in a row of claims passed both audits without issue.  Our bills matched our services provided in the clinical record. I’m sure you will find this to be true of most agencies in Iowa

There are bad apples in every industry, which the article alludes to and home health is not immune, but to use sensational journalism to imply that no one at the state looks at what we do is grossly unfair.