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MEDICARE RAC MAY CLOSE YOUR HOSPITAL

The RAC program is going into effect soon and is a stealth way for the government to take over healthcare and close many hospitals. It claims to be out to catch overbilling but will cost hospitals millions each for small coding errors.

Example 1) A patient is brought to a rural hospital in serious condition. Labs are run and the patient is deemed treatment by a larger hospital with better resources and is flown to that bigger nearby hospital. The hospital gets the patient in the ER and runs labs to acertain the condition of the patient. Sounds reasonable, right? RAC steps in and demands the hopital to refund medicare payment for any labs done in the small hospital. Conditions in a critical patient can change in minutes, but bureaucrats know better than a doctor.

2) A patient is admitted with chest pain and the next day is diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome. No problem there right? No the person in billing sees chest pain and there after puts chest pain every day for the medicare coding while the more expensive diagnosis of ACS is treated and billed. CAR steps in and Medicare is repaid for the cost of the whole hospital stay.

Medicare billing is complex and small errors are easily made with no intent to defraud. These small errors and many like the examples are going to cost hospitals more than many will be able to afford. It will also cause costs to rise for those not on government assistance. The government might even take over some failing hospitals in the socialist agenda. RAC is already causing hospitals to lay off and not hire needed medical staff.

What is really astounding is the private firms doing the audits keep 1/3 of all recovered money. This is a scheme ripe for abuse by the private auditing firms.

The sum of all this is your local hospital could close costing jobs and healthcare for you when seconds count.