Here’s the good news for providers dealing with Recovery Audit Program contractors: The federal government will make fewer additional document requests, starting this month.

Now the not-so-good news: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will not slow down other components of the auditing program. The new approach is outlined in a Medicare newsletter released at press time.

Long-term care providers and advocates, including the National Association for the Support of Long-Term Care and the American Health Care Association, have expressed concern over the RAC manual therapy reviews that began last month. It was a “disappointment” that a recent CMS memo on therapy caps did not address this issue, NASL Executive Vice President Cynthia Morton told McKnight’s. AHCA President and CEO Mark Parkinson described the new review process as “confusing and wholly inappropriate” in a letter to CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. 

The RAC program was created to identify and recover inappropriate Medicare payments.