For Immediate Release
(North Haven, CT) Today, the Connecticut State Medical Society (CSMS) issued a strong endorsement for the “Fair Medical Audits Act of 2015,” introduced today by U.S. Representative George Holding of North Carolina. The legislation addresses many 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 audit program: “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, CSMS has worked closely with the Physicians Advocacy Institute to advocate for more fair and transparent medical audits.
CSMS EVP/CEO Matthew Katz 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 in Connecticut.”
CSMS President Robert Russo, MD welcomed Rep. Holding's legislation, noting “[T]his bill is of critical importance to Connecticut physicians who care for Medicare beneficiaries. Transparency and fairness in auditing strikes the needed balance between protecting the integrity of our Medicare system, and allowing physicians to focus on providing needed patient care.”
CSMS Legislative Chair David Emmel, MD also applauded the bill. “This addresses the need to improve audit fairness and transparency for physicians. It also provides important support for our audit reform efforts at the state level."
Robert W. Seligson, MBA, MA, President of the Physicians Advocacy Institute and EVP/CEO of the North Carolina Medical Society also hailed the proposal, stating: “Physicians and their advocates across the nation 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 CSMS Communications Director Kelly Raskauskas (203-752-8435 kellyr@csms.org) or PAI Executive Vice President Kelly Kenney (312-543-7955 k2strategiesllc@gmail.com.
###
