Wachler & Associates Health Law BlogPresident’s 2016 Budget Proposes Changes to Recovery Audit Procedures
On February 2, 2015, the White House released President Obama’s budget report for fiscal year 2016. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to healthcare issues. The report proposes several reforms to the Medicare program and purports a projected savings of $407.2 billion in the next 10 years. Additionally, the report includes a $403 million multi-year investment towards preventing, detecting, and prosecuting healthcare fraud and abuse. Moreover, the 2016 budget provides for a $201 million investment to continue to fund the full Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control discretionary cap adjustment, increase funding to recovery auditors to take on more corrective actions, and provide more funds to the Medicaid Integrity Program. The President’s budget states an intention to increase such funding to $4.6 billion over the next 10 years.
The budget brief published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), proposes numerous measures in an attempt to curb the Medicare appeals backlog. Suggestions made by the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (“OMHA”) are summarized as follows:
- Invest new resources at all levels of appeal to increase adjudication capacity and implement new strategies to alleviate the current backlog;
- Take administrative actions to reduce the number of pending appeals and prevent new cases from entering the system; and
- Propose legislative reforms that provide additional funding and new authorities to increase efficiency and address the volume of incoming appeals.
The investment increases suggested by OMHA are part of its requested budget of $140 million, a $53 million increase from fiscal year 2015. Aside from bolstered investment, OMHA also proposed several reforms that would impact the Medicare audit process. One such proposal is the implementation of a per-claim filing fee charged to providers at each level of the Medicare appeals process. The proposal allows for a refunding of the fee, but only in such instances where appellants receive a fully favorable appeal decision. OMHA projects that these filing fees will amount to $5 million, which will in turn fund 119 ALJ teams. The increase in ALJ teams is intended to decrease the backlog by improving efficiency and responsiveness.
OMHA also proposed the authorization of sampling and extrapolation techniques throughout the appeals process. This proposal would allow providers to consolidate all of their appeals into a single administrative appeal at all levels of the appeals process. If enacted, the proposal would require parties who are appealing claims included within an extrapolated overpayment, or consolidated previously, to file one appeal request for any such claims in dispute.
While HHS claims that these measures should assist in alleviating the backlog, the bulk of the reforms miss their mark. Ideally, HHS should rework the entire RAC process. For example, many industry stakeholders believe the financial incentives for RACs to deny claims are misguided. Wachler & Associates regularly counsels entities on how best to proactively prepare for an audit and mitigate audit risks. If you or your healthcare entity have questions regarding the outlined proposals, or are currently undergoing an audit and need assistance defending claims, please contact an experienced healthcare attorney at 248-544-0888 or via email at wapc@wachler.com.