Survey: Hospitals' RAC audits usually managed by one compliance employee

The Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA), a nonprofit trade association for healthcare compliance professionals, determined that hospital audits conducted through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program are usually handled by compliance departments and that they generally take a single full-time employee (FTE) to manage.

The HCCA made these determinations based on the results of a web-based survey of 418 healthcare organizations ranging in size from one employee to more than 5,000.

The results, published in January, showed that:

• Two-thirds of respondents said that RAC audits were the responsibility of their organization's compliance department;
• Fifty-seven percent of all respondents reported that a sole FTE handled RAC audits, 27 percent of all respondents reported that two FTEs handled RAC audits and 64 percent of organizations with more than 5,000 employees reported that three or fewer FTEs handled RAC audits;
• Fifty percent of respondents reported that compliance department budgets for this fiscal year were unaffected by government initiatives, 5 percent reported that budgets decreased and 10 percent reported significant increases; and
• Seventy-seven percent of respondents from organizations with fewer than 250 employees reported that they used consultants to assist with RAC audits compared to 40 percent of organizations with more than 5,000.

To view the results of the HCCA survey, click here.