The University Medical Center faces a federal investigation into the billing practices of teaching physicians in the upcoming months.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established a national audit of teaching hospitals last June to investigate physicians' bills submitted to the government for medical services provided to Medicare patients since 1990.
In conjunction with the national investigation, the University's Medical Center and about 30 other schools will undergo audits, said Lloyd Jacobs, senior associate dean for the Medical School.
"We are one of dozens of institutions who are having their billing practices examined," Jacobs said. "They are going to look at the same sort of examination for all universities."
Officials from the department's Office of the Inspector General will examine University medical records to assure that teaching physicians were physically present for all services provided to Medicare patients.
But it is too early to speculate on the results of the investigation, Jacobs said.
"The answer is I just don't know," Jacobs said. "It is my belief that there is nothing wrong with the technicality of (the University Medical Center's) billing," Jacobs said.
In a similar audit in 1995, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center agreed to pay a settlement of $30 million because they were found to have charged Medicare full-physician fees, when residents were doing most of the work.
The Association of American Medical Colleges said OIG is unfairly auditing past records because before August 1995 the Medicare billing standards were unclear.
"(The investigation) amounts to an OIG program to coerce medical schools and teaching physicians into forfeiting millions of dollars of fees billed in good faith by threatening punitive damages if they do not settle audits based on the retroactive application of (federal) regulations," according to a recent written statement by the AAMC.
"Unless fair audit standards are established, our nation's medical schools, teaching hospitals and faculty practice plans will be required to forfeit millions of dollars to the Federal government which will undercut their ability to fulfill their education, service and research missions," AAMC said in the statement.
Jacobs said he is not sure when the audit will take place, but it probably will not be finished for at least six months. He said the audit has nothing to do with the quality of care the Medical Center provides.
"I think we are a very good university," Jacobs said. "This relates to a billing technicality. It has nothing to do with our commitment to patients."
- Daily Staff Reporter Katie Wang contributed to this report.