CMS Will Increase EHR Upcoding Audits

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is planning to increase its audits to detect provider organization upcoding facilitated by electronic health records (EHR). The CMS focus on preventing EHR fraud is part of the government’s 2013 program integrity agenda, to bring down costs and improve quality of care through implementation of health information technology. The 2013 agenda was announced on March 6, 2013. In the announcement, CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari, M.D., said that the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is taking new . . .