Opinion
Motivate Medicare's auditing contractors to find underpayments
LETTER — Posted April 25, 2005
Regarding "Doctors wary of Medicare audit plan's incentives" (Article, April 4): Medicare recovery audit contractors are to receive government compensation for monies recovered from physician overpayments.
Incentives always spur one's efforts. If the government is providing incentives to outside contractors to ferret out Medicare overpayments, would it not be an eminently practical suggestion for the AMA to sponsor physician underpayment incentives? To wit, let the AMA establish a program for physicians to voluntarily reimburse 5% of all underpayment monies they receive to the same contractors. This could very well level the playing field as the contractors search for errors.
Leslie Bennett, MD, Queens, N.Y.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/04/25/edlt0425.htm.
