Voluntary Refunds Won’t Stop RAC Audit
Monday, August 17th, 2009
Don’t let internal audits lull you into a false sense of security. “Certainly, internal audit results can show where additional education is necessary to ensure appropriate coding, billing, and documentation practices,” says HealthLeaders Media in a July 30 report. “And this will result in fewer RAC denials, because if practices are correct, the RACs will find fewer errors to deny.
“But many providers also assume that reporting errors (and refunding identified overpayments) discovered while self-auditing will protect those claims from RAC review.”
Not so, says the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).