After a longstanding review with the HHS Office of Inspector General, 306-bed Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, Md., has refunded $568,420 to the government for Medicare overpayments for certain physician services.
The OIG initially inquired about the hospital's "nonfacility place-of-service codes." Meritus was billing on behalf of its wound care facility physicians, and it incorrectly used those nonhospital facility codes for services that were performed in the hospital's wound care center.
Meritus officials said the coding errors were due to "faulty billing software design," according to the OIG's audit. In addition to refunding the money, Meritus has fixed the software issues and plans to conduct periodic reviews to make sure the errors don't occur again.
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