Auditing the Audits

HME Audit key looks to show impact of Medicare audits on providers

• By Joseph Duffy
• Mar 01, 2015

According to AAHomecare, the out-of-control Medicare audit system puts paperwork before patients, jeopardizes critical care for patients due to the overwhelming number of rubber stamp denials, and hangs small businesses out to dry in the ALJ claim backlog.

“We want smart audits. We want them to be thorough, make sense, and hold people accountable,” says Kim Brummett, vice president of Regulatory Affairs for the American Association for Homecare. “We’re making a stand against a broken process, but we don’t have the hard data to back it up. At the end of the day, anecdotal stories, while powerful, are not enough.”

The HME Audit Key is a way for providers to anonymously show how audits are hurting their business without fear of reprisal from audit contractors. Using a password-protected survey tool, providers can track and share their audits safely and securely with the same third party that the American Hospital Association trusts with their audit data.

The HME Audit Key is simple and easy to use, but as this goes to press, it is still in a beta phase and all benefits might not be available. If you register, it will be deleted at the end of the beta testing period. An announcement will be made when enrollment formally opens.

Once the system is fully built, tested and launched, audit data will be collected on a quarterly basis from HME providers.

By using Provider Consulting Solutions, the same group that created the AHA RACTRAC, we bring the credibility of an objective third party to the table.

Collecting this data will enable AAHomcare to advocate for common sense reforms using strong data and facts, rather than self-reported numbers and anecdotal stories.

AAHomecare is managing and ensuring the security of this project on behalf of the entire industry. With your help, they can use the HME Audit Key to analyze audit data trends and show policymakers why and where the audit system is broken. For more information, visit https://www.hmeauditkey.org.

This article originally appeared in the March 2015 issue of HME Business.