Medicare audits feared, detested…

Florida and New York hospital officials are leaping onto legislationsponsored by California lawmakers that would temporarily halt acontroversial Medicare auditing program.  The commission-basedprogram has been operating for more than two years on an experimentalbasis in the three states and is set to expand permanently to 20 morein March.  But because of the California experience – in whichrehabilitation hospitals have been forced to surrender tens of millionsof dollars for past services deemed by auditors to be medicallyunnecessary – Democratic Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara andRepublican Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia recently introduced legislationthat would place the program on a one-year moratorium to investigatethe problems.  While New York and Florida have not had the depth of problems thathave the California Hospital Association complaining, officials inthose states said the program has not gone smoothly there, either.  Theincreasing anxiety has elevated the auditing program to a top agendaitem of the American Hospital Association. Don May, the association’svice president for policy, said association lobbyists are activelypressing for passage of the Capps-Nunes bill. 

Source/more:  Sacramento Bee,  http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/520053.html