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Medicaid Will Implement RAC Audits Jan. 1, CMS Says
Published on Mon Oct 03, 2011
Recent delays have given you more time to prepare. You've benefited from several delays in Medicaid RAC audits, but as of Jan. 1, 2012, the time will finally come when those audits will kick in. As we reported in Vol. 14, No. 4 of Pediatric Coding Alert, "recovery audit contractors" (RACs), which the federal government has hired to audit physician claims, will be reviewing Medicaid claims soon thanks to last year's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Although RAC audits were originally slated to impact Medicaid claims on April 1, 2011, CMS delayed that date, and did not make a subsequent announcement until Sept. 14, at which point the Federal Register posted a final rule indicating the audits will begin on Jan. 1, 2012. In place for Medicare contractors since 2005, RACs are often referred to as medical "bounty hunters" because they only make money if they collect overpayments from [...]