In a letter to the Senate, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Tax Reform criticized lawmakers for recent policies that minimize the Recovery Audit Contractor program.
CMS issued a new directive last month reducing the percentage of hospital claims RACs are allowed to audit from two percent to 0.5 percent, starting in January 2016.
"CMS' under-the-radar manipulations are effectively nullifying one of the most successful programs that Congress has mandated to curb Medicare fraud, waste and abuse," the coalition stated in the letter. The letter argues the RAC program helped drop Medicare improper payment rates from 10.8 to 8.5 percent between fiscal year 2009 and 2012.
Concerned by a high volume of RAC appeals from hospitals, the AmericanCollege of Surgeon's wrote a letter to the House of Representatives last week in support of stricter RAC regulations.