AHA: Medicare RAC Requests Up 47% Over the Past 6 Months

Since the fourth quarter of 2012, medical record requests from Medicare Recovery Auditors, or RACs, to hospitals have increased 47 percent, according to the American Hospital Association's RACTrac Survey for the second quarter of 2013.

Over the same six-month timeframe, Medicare RACs have boosted their complex audit denials to hospitals by 58 percent. Of complex denials, two-thirds of hospitals said medical necessity denials are the costliest types of RAC requests.

More than 1,200 hospitals participated in the AHA's second-quarter RACTrac Survey. Click here to view other key findings published by Becker's Hospital Review on August 29, 2013.