FLORIDA AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION IMPLEMENTS TELEPHONIC HOME HEALTH

Tiffany.Vause@ahca.myflorida.com, 850-412-3623

~Pilot project will verify that home health services are delivered to Medicaid recipients~

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) today announced the launch of the Telephonic Home Health Service Delivery Monitoring and Verification (DMV) pilot project in Miami-Dade County. This project will allow the Florida Medicaid program to verify that home health services were actually delivered to the Medicaid recipient.

“Reducing fraud is an important priority for our Medicaid program,” said Agency Secretary Thomas W. Arnold. “I am pleased that this project is underway, giving us one more tool to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are spent only on services actually provided to recipients.”

In 2009, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 1986 giving the Agency more authority to fight fraud and abuse in the Florida Medicaid program by increasing the standards home health agencies must meet before receiving Medicaid payments, adding penalties and providing new authority to impose sanctions and to suspend or revoke licenses of those who cheat the system. The bill also authorized the Agency to implement pilot projects in Miami-Dade County to prevent the overutilization of home health services and to control, verify and monitor the delivery of home health services. Future expansion of the pilot project will require legislative approval.

The Agency has contracted with Sandata LLC to implement a pilot project to telephonically verify the delivery of Medicaid home health services in Miami-Dade County. Sandata LLC will validate the home health visits through voice-recognition technology from a telephone at the Medicaid recipient’s residence. The technology
will allow the Agency to verify when an assigned nurse or home health aide arrived at and departed from a particular Medicaid recipient’s residence.

Harold S. Blue, CEO for Sandata LLC explained, “This project creates a triple win. The patient wins with increased quality of care. The provider/home care agency wins as automation drives cost savings and a new level of quality care delivery. The Agency wins as automation increases system transparency, decreasing fraud, abuse and waste.”

Beginning July 1, 2010, Sandata LLC will work with all home health agencies in Miami-Dade County to provide the following accountability measures:

 Confirm home health visits by receiving calls from home health agency personnel (nurses and home health aides) at the beginning and end of each home health visit using the Medicaid recipient’s home telephone. For Medicaid recipients without a telephone, Sandata will use alternative methods to track the delivery of services.

 Generate claims for home health visits through its payor management system and ensure that the service delivery information is consistent with the prior authorization in the Florida Medicaid Management Information System.

 Provide Web-based access to schedule visits, view a record of previous in-home services and confirm the accuracy of billing records before they are submitted to the Agency’s fiscal agent. Training and educational resources will be provided to home health agencies beginning in June.

Medicaid providers and recipients can learn more about the new pilot project on the Website, www.sandataflorida.com.

About Sandata LLC
Sandata provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications, for the home healthcare industry. Sandata’s suite of products includes Santrax, the market leading time and attendance product, web-based software solutions, voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states, municipalities and the home healthcare agency market.

Sandata’s solutions enable home healthcare agencies, whether Medicare, Medicaid or Private Duty, government or managed care payors as well as any organization with a remote workforce to realize administrative cost savings, streamlined operational procedures, and significantly reduced paperwork burdens. Sandata has over 1,500 customers in 47 states using its products in more than 400,000 homes on an annual basis, and processes over 100 million telephone calls annually. Four data centers are strategically located across the country with state-of-the-art redundancy and
disaster recovery capabilities. For additional information about Sandata, please visit: www.sandata.com or contact Ellen
Rich at erich@sandata.com or 516-484-4400 x457.