CMS Program Audit Prep: Leveraging Your Appeals & Grievances Software

Happy New Year and ‘tis the season for CMS Program Audits!  In the 2024 CMS Program Audit Updates memo released on December 19, 2023, CMS confirmed their plans to conduct both routine and focused audits of health plans in 2024. The new focused audits will assess compliance with the coverage and utilization management (UM) requirements finalized…

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Risk Management for Health Plans – Part 3

In Part 2 of our Risk Management for Health Plans series, we provided a high-level understanding of how to approach risk management from a tactical perspective. This week we will provide you with a strategic framework to apply to your  program. The 5 Pillars of Risk Management Keep in mind, Risk Management is a continuous…

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Risk Management for Health Plans – Part 2

In Part 1 of our Risk Management for Health Plans series, we focused on risk culture. This week we will get more tactical and breakdown the operational approach to risk management. Organizational Approach to Identifying & Managing Risk The day-to-day operational approach to risk management requires people, processes, and systems for any organization to properly…

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2024 Oversight Activities – Utilization Management Changes

CMS notified Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) on October 24, 2023, that it will be conducting strategic conversations on the new Utilization Management (UM) requirements effective January 1, 2024. Following these conversations, CMS will start conducting routine and focused audits of the new prior authorization and related rules published in April of this year in the…

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Risk Management for Health Plans – Part 1

Recently, CODY® conducted, through our partnership with the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), a webinar titled Identifying & Managing Risk. These are a few of the questions regarding risk management for health plans that we considered: How effective is your organization at identifying and managing risk within your health plan from an operational and…

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CMS Audits – Be Prepared to Avoid These Common Findings

As the 2022 Program Audit Cycle winds up with the last of the routine audit engagement letters issued in July, we are starting to see the audit results. This year saw new audit protocols, and some plans struggled with the new universe layouts. In addition, CMS added a new observation classification – ORCAs (Observation Requiring…

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CMS Program Audit Findings & Key Preparation Tips

CMS released the 2021 Part C and Part D Program Audit and Enforcement Report on June 7, 2022. Highlights of the report indicate the average audit scores increased over the last report, stating 2020 average overall audit score of 0.15 to 2021 average overall audit score of 0.44. It’s worth noting, there were 27 plans…

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The Medicare Timeliness Monitoring Project (TMP)—What to Expect?

CMS continues to conduct an industry-wide Timeliness Monitoring Project (TMP). This project is a retrospective review of 2022 data. It allows CMS to collect data to evaluate the timeliness of processing Medicare Part C reconsiderations, using the new TMP and audit protocols in place for 2022. As a reminder, this data is used to verify…

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AEP Best Practices – How to Produce Compliant & Effective Member Communications

Planning for AEP (Annual Enrollment Period) As health plans prepare for AEP (Annual Enrollment Period), they face a multitude of challenges—ranging from compliance issues to mitigating risk related to timing, data, and documents. To help navigate these challenges, here are some key strategies and Best Practices for Compliant and Effective Member Communications we recently shared…

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CodySoft® Allied Central Dashboard™ (ACD) FAQs

Creating, managing, and tracking recurring orders for mandated member materials fulfillment can be complex and time-consuming. Not to mention, file and data validation, SLA management, and tracking errors, issues, and processing audits—adds even more to manage. To ease the burden, that’s where the CodySoft® Allied Central Dashboard™ (ACD) comes in. By leveraging automation, the ACD…

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