Betsy Wade (bwade@signaturehealthcarellc.com) is the Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer at Signature Healthcare in Louisville, KY.
As we enter the season of gift-giving, it is important to remember that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) has been providing healthcare organizations with guidance on gifts to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries for more than two decades.
OIG first addressed gifts to beneficiaries in a 2000 advisory opinion, which stood for 16 years before being updated to a policy.[1] Five years later, with the COVID-19 pandemic a public health emergency, the focus on gifts to beneficiaries has not waned, with the OIG issuing further guidance on gifts to beneficiaries as an incentive to be vaccinated.[2]