DCS Healthcare, the Medicare recovery audit contractor for hospitals and other providers in the Northeast, has released its first CMS-approved issues for audits, according to DCS Healthcare's Web site.
Legal & Regulatory Issues
The Illinois Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on a hospital tax dispute issue, which could set a nation-wide precedent on whether non-profit hospitals need to provide a quantifiable amount of charity care in order to qualify for tax-exempt status,…
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) stated to fix Medicare's current physician payment formula, which project steep payment cuts and may limit seniors' access to care, according to a news release from the American Medical Association.
Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union held a rally outside the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center board's annual meeting to criticize the practice of Beth Israel and other Massachusetts hospitals of charge a fee for patients who are…
The health reform bill recently released by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would require non-profit hospitals to adopt written policies on financial assistance to low-income patients and widely publicize them, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune.
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Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced S. 1681, the Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act, which would "ensure health insurance issuers and medical malpractice insurance issuers cannot engage in price fixing, bid rigging or market allocations to the detriment…
New York Gov. David Paterson signed a bill into law that requires more reporting from hospitals on their staffing practices, according to a report in The Business Review of Albany.
Rakesh Sahni, MD, of Rumson, N.J., Ravindra Patel, MD, of Scotch Plains, N.J., and Jasjit Walia, MD, of Edison, N.J., settled civil lawsuits by federal prosecutors, alleging that the physicians accepted kickbacks to refer cardiology patients to the University of…
CMS has basically upheld its previously stated rules on how hospitals and other providers can prevent recoupment of Medicare disputed payments during appeals of decisions by recovery audit contractors, according to a final rule published in the Federal Register.
The nationwide rollout of the permanent Recovery Audit Contractor program is currently underway, and providers in all states need to be prepared for these privately contracted auditors unleashed by Medicare to weed out improper payments. RAC experts offer the following…