MINNEAPOLIS, June 9/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Recovery Audit Contractors (RAC) prepare to contact health care providers as early as late June or early July, the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) announced it will hold a critical and timely web conference on June 23, 2009, Advance RAC Forum: Questions and Answers with CMS and Leading Providers about the New RAC Rollout. Click on the following link to register: http://www.hcca-info.org/RAC.

Health care providers will have an opportunity to have their most current questions and concerns about the new permanent RAC program addressed during this 90-minute program. Following brief presentations on "hot" issues, leading hospital compliance officers and legal counsel familiar with the four-state pilot RAC program will pose questions to Connie Leonard, Division Director, a key CMS official responsible for implementing the RAC program. This will be followed by a Q&A session open to audience participants.

Topics to be covered include:

• Rebilling following RAC denials
• Role of voluntary repayments
• Key advice around coordination that providers must adopt
• Appeal strategy and tactics, including advice on data to be presented during appeals
• Use of the CMS and RAC contractor lists of issues undergoing review (RAC appeal issues that now must be submitted to CMS)
• Other questions from the audience and panel

Expert Faculty

HCCA has assembled an expert faculty for this valuable and interactive web conference moderated by Larry Vernaglia, Co-Chair of the Payments, Fraud & Abuse and Compliance Work Group of Foley & Lardner, LLP.

Speakers include:

• Connie Leonard, Division Director, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• Jim Bryant, Chief Compliance Officer, Brigham Women's Hospital
• Carol Klove, Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer, UCLA Medical Sciences
• Stacey Levitt, Director Patient Care Management, Lenox Hill Hospital

This program will be valuable not only to hospital providers, but will also benefit home care, skilled nursing, physicians, and other health care providers. While this web conference will include presentations, it is designed to cultivate roundtable and interactive discussion between the panelists and the listeners.

RAC Background

In the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, Congress required a permanent and national RAC program to be in place by January 1, 2010. The national RAC program is the outgrowth of a successful demonstration program that used RACs to identify Medicare overpayments and underpayments to health care providers and suppliers in California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Arizona. The goal of the recovery audit program is to identify improper payments made on claims of health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Improper payments may be overpayments or underpayments.

Web Conference Contact Info:

Marlene Robinson

Health Care Compliance Association

6500 Barrie Road, Suite 250

Minneapolis, MN 55435

Toll-Free: 888/277-4977

Dir: 952/405-7903

E-mail: marlene.robinson@hcca-info.org

About HCCA

The Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA), established in 1996, is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.It is a non-profit professional membership organization made up of compliance and ethics professionals working in the health care industry. HCCA is dedicated to improving the quality of compliance. Its mission is to champion ethical practice and compliance standards and to provide the necessary resources for ethics and compliance professionals and others who share these principles. Visit HCCA's Web site at www.hcca-info.org. Tel: 888/580-8373.