A federal watchdog agency has found that three hospitals owned by Irving-based CHRISTUS Health erroneously charged Medicare $3.3 million using a billing practice coming under heightened scrutiny.
Two of the chain’s Texas hospitals – in Beaumont and Santa Rosa – as well as a third in Alexandria, La. are being asked to refund the money for improperly submitting “inpatient short-stay” medical claims, according to reports released today by the inspector general for the Department of Health & Human Services.
The short-stay designation refers to hospital care that spans fewer than two nights. Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a division of HHS, have raised concerns in recent years that a growing number of such claims have been flagged as improper because the services actually constituted outpatient care. Inpatient claims generally bring more revenue than outpatient claims.
CMS is implementing new rules, hotly criticized by the health-care lobby, to try to curb such billings.
