OIG OK’s Health System’s Free Shuttle

A program designed to provide transportation within a healthcare system, in the absence of public transportation, won’t be subject to sanction according to Office of Inspector General Advisory Opinion 15-13. The free shuttle service would transport patients to medical facilities within an integrated health system, including a medical center, two small community hospitals and an ambulatory surgical center. The system also includes a multispecialty clinic comprised of 1,000 physicians. Limited public transportation and private taxi services were locally available and the health system argued the "lack of affordable transportation … constitutes a barrier to health care access." Transportation would be provided to patients of the system facilities without regard to ability to pay for health care services, health insurance status, or reference to volume of federal health care program business for the system. The OIG also found transport wasn’t advertised to the general public, would only serve the system’s facilities, didn’t bring patients from outside the system’s primary service area and wasn’t likely to "subsidize the practices of Private Physicians." Therefore, the OIG indicated that the arrangement created only minimal risk of fraud and abuse, so it wouldn’t impose sanctions.