Hello All,
Today, I got a letter from the Department of the Treasury, Financial
Management Service, in Birmingham, Alabama. They are telling me that “my
unpaid delinquent debt owed to the Department of Health and Human Services,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Medicare Overpayments (Not
eligible for PCA, whatever that means), has been referred to the U.S.
Department of the Treasury for collection.”
This is relative to the one RAC audit that we have received, and have been
fighting, for over a year now. I guess that I am a bit puzzled by this. We
have not had our day in court in front of the ALJ, and Medicare has
certainly been free to continue to withhold money from us as they see fit,
in an effort to protect their case. We have not stopped seeing Medicare
patients, so they could easily continue to keep my money that way.
To me, this feels a lot like strong-arm tactics, an effort to bully us into
giving up our case. They are asking for $13,816.72.
To a certain degree, we are fortunate in that we can afford to write a check
like this without it hurting us. How many of you out there can say the same?
I can easily see how this could cripple a smaller business than mine.
This all stems from a C-leg I delivered SEVEN YEARS AGO to a healthy, active
48 y.o. plumber who lost his leg above the knee in a motor vehicle accident.
Active guy.
How many of you are now receiving letters like this? It seems to me that
this is a new tactic on the part of the whole RAC audit/Medicare extortion
effort.
These are truly crazy times.
Warren R Mays, CPO
