A Command Performant(s): RAC Audits on the Rise
As we approach the conclusion of another transformative year, we are excited to present our comprehensive year-end review, shedding light on the trends shaping the healthcare market in 2023. Our team’s keen insights and...more
Medicare pays billions of dollars in fraudulently billed claims each year despite the various tools the Medicare system has at its disposal. Because of this problem, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”)...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 30, no. 2 (January 18, 2021) - Recovery audit contractors (RACs) may soon be auditing positron emission tomography (PET) for initial treatment strategy in oncologic conditions for compliance...more
On December 17, 2019, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) reintroduced legislation to address the backlog of Medicare appeals cases awaiting review before an...more
Late last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released the CY 2020 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) final rule [CMS-1717-FC]. While many hospitals had hoped for relief from recent...more
In CMS’s continuing effort to take “a strategic approach to protecting taxpayer dollars and reducing regulation to put patients over paperwork,” Administrator Seema Verma recently highlighted changes to the Recovery Audit...more
A federal appeals court issued a significant ruling last week in relation to the ongoing backlog of Medicare claims appeals. It potentially gives providers a new way to seek relief when Medicare comes to collect money that an...more
Perhaps lost amid the healthcare news coverage of competing proposals regarding “Medicare for All” and the repeal of Obamacare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) last month announced the expansion of its...more
Effective September 12, 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will implement changes to ensure that complex reviews for coverage determinations are performed by Registered Nurses (RNs), therapists, or...more
Last week, a number of health care industry associations sent letters to Congress detailing ways in which the government could relieve them of the burdens associated with “red tape.” The letters are in response to the first...more
Originally published in Haig, Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, Fourth Edition §§ 87:1 et seq. © 2016 American Bar Association. This chapter discusses federal court litigation relating to health care...more
Most providers whose claims have been determined to be improper by the Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) under the Medicare Recovery Audit Program have discovered that the appeals backlog “is incontrovertibly grotesque.”...more
Last week, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and several hospitals were successful in convincing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn a 2014 lower court decision, possibly paving the way for a...more
In August 27, 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the long-awaited and much-anticipated proposed 340B Drug Pricing Program (340B Program) Omnibus Guidance (Proposed Guidance). The Proposed...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced, on August 12, 2015, that it has extended the enforcement delay of the controversial two-midnight rule governing short hospital stays until the end of the year....more
On July 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released proposed updates to the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System for Calendar Year...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had planned to award new contracts to companies that act as Medicare’s recovery audit contractors (now referred to as recovery auditors) (RAs) for operation of the Medicare...more
On June 25, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing to address the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) Program. Committee members expressed concern that the RAC program creates unreasonable administrative burdens...more