Spending Bill Bashes RACs, Hits CMS And OMHA Over Appeals Backlog

Lawmakers in their report accompanying the recently passed fiscal 2015 spending bill blast CMS' Recovery Audit contractor program for harming providers and contributing to the backlog at the third level of Medicare appeals. But the American Coalition for Healthcare Claims Integrity, which represents RACs, slammed appropriators for being sympathetic to providers, who the RACs allege are incorrectly billing Medicare, and say the report amounts to the hospital industry using lawmakers to bully CMS over the RAC program. The appropriations report...