1. (a) DADS will assess a financial penalty against a facility that:

   1. (1) Fails to timely file the monthly facility report required under §352.4 of this chapter;
   2. (2) Files a false, erroneous, or fraudulent monthly facility report that DADS concludes resulted in the assessment of a quality assurance fee that is less than the facility should have been assessed; or
   3. (3) Fails to timely pay a quality assurance fee assessed under §352.5 of this chapter.
2. (b) A penalty assessed under this section is an amount equal to one-fourth the amount of the quality assurance fee for each month the quality assurance fee is late, not reported or unpaid.
3. (c) DADS will notify a facility in writing of the assessment of a penalty under this section and the amount of the penalty.

4. (d) DADS may make a referral to an appropriate authority in cases where it makes a good faith determination that a facility has:

   1. (1) Committed fraud in the submission of information to DADS;
   2. (2) Willfully submitted erroneous information to DADS; or
   3. (3) Violated a requirement of its license or Medicaid certification.
5. (e) DADS may suspend payments to a facility that fails to pay or report the quality assurance fee.

6. (f) The assessment of a penalty under this section does not relieve a facility from:

   1. (1) Providing services to residents in accordance with its obligations under contract or the law;
   2. (2) Paying additional quality assurance fees that may be assessed to the facility; or
   3. (3) Otherwise complying with licensure and certification requirements.

Source Note:The provisions of this §352.7 adopted to be effective November 18, 2001, 26 TexReg 9085; amended to be effective February 3, 2008, 33 TexReg 667.