WASHINGTON, May 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, U.S.
Representative George Holding of
North Carolina introduced "The
Fair Medical Audits Act of 2015." The Physician Advocacy Institute
("PAI") strongly endorses this legislation, which would address
fundamental concerns that physicians have with regard to the
extraordinary lack of transparency and expensive, time-consuming
and often unfair processes that plague the current Medicare audit
program.
Representative Holding declared it time to fix the broken RAC
program, stating: "Put simply, patients achieve the best health
outcomes when practicing physicians do just that - practice
medicine. My bill will bring transparency and fairness to the audit
process so doctors can spend more time caring for their patients
and less time proving their innocence. Medicare frauds must be
found and severely punished but not at the cost of the independent
practice of medicine."
Currently, Medicare pays recovery audit contractors or "RACs" on
a contingency basis to find overpayments to health care providers,
providing these contractors with undue monetary incentives to audit
doctors. This legislation would establish incentives for RACs to
make more accurate audit findings and increase educational efforts
to help physicians avoid common mistakes."
Since its inception in 2006, the PAI has been committed to
advocating for more fair and transparent medical
audits. Robert W. Seligson, MBA, MA, President of the
Physicians Advocacy Institute and EVP/CEO of the North Carolina
Medical Society, lauded the legislation, noting: "It is time to
address fundamental problems that have contributed to the backlog
of audit appeals and caused a great deal of unnecessary expense and
confusion for physicians nationwide. We commend Congressman
Holding for his leadership on this critically important
issue."
Representative Holding is a member of the House Ways and Means
Committee, which has jurisdiction to consider legislation to reform
the RAC program.
For more information, please contact PAI Executive Vice
President, Kelly Kenney, at
312-543-7955 or k2strategiesllc@gmail.com.
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SOURCE Physicians Advocacy Institute