AHA RACTrac Initiative

In response to the lack of data and information provided by CMS and the RACs on the impact the program is having on America's hospitals, AHA has created RACTrac, a web-based survey that will ask hospitals to report on a quarterly basis on their RAC experience. 

Data collection will begin in January 2010 for organizations that experienced RAC activity in 2009 and will be expanded as RAC activity ramps up in 2010. Your organization's participation in RACTrac will provide AHA with the critical data that we need to successfully advocate on your behalf.  RACTrac will allow us to identify trends in reasons for denials across regions and at the national level.  This information will then be used to educate the field, CMS and Congress on changes needed to the program.

AHA has created an advisory that explains in detail our RACTrac initiative. This advisory provides an overview of the RACTrac initiative and answers many of the questions hospitals have about how to participate in the survey, downloading an Excel claim level tracking tool, and understanding what it means to be a RACTrac compatible vendor.

If your organization is experiencing RAC activity, please contact Elizabeth Baskett at ebaskett@aha.org or 202-626-2294 to participate in RACTrac.
 

    

A list of the detailed RACTrac Survey Questions and Data Definitions are noted below:

Hospitals should begin to prepare for RAC reviews by assembling an internal team to plan and implement process improvements to reduce RAC vulnerabilities.  A self-audit to identify risks is an important first step.  Once RAC audits begin, hospitals should internally track any and all RAC activity to minimize your financial risk and ensure that it responds to the RACs in a timely fashion to avoid technical denials.  An internal tracking system will help monitor the status of claims in order to preserve appeal rights on every claim that is identified as an overpayment.  A number of vendors have developed RAC activity tracking tools that can both help you manage the RAC process as well as provide information to AHA RACTrac.  AHA has also developed a basic claim level tracking tool.  Both are described below.

RACTrac Compatible Vendors

As of November 23, 2009, more than ten vendors of RAC activity tracking tools have successfully completed the process to gain certification as "RACTrac compatible."  RACTrac compatible simply means that a vendor has created a mechanism (either a report summary or a CSV file) in their application to aggregate RAC experience data in a manner that is consistent with AHA RACTrac survey questions. 

Many other vendors are currently working to become RACTrac Compatible.  AHA strongly believes that there is not a one size fits all approach to internally managing your RAC audits, and therefore AHA does not support or endorse any particular product for RAC tracking. However we do encourage hospitals to ask whether or not the product they are considering is RACTrac compatible.

RACTrac Compatible Vendors (Updated February 3, 2010)

Vendors Still Working to be RACTrac Compatible (Updated February 3, 2010)  

If you are interested in becoming a RACTrac Compatible Vendor, or are developing your own tool internally, please click here.

Claim Level Tracking Tool

As noted above, internal tracking of audit activity is essential for managing the RAC process. Hospitals also will need to organize their data to properly respond to the RACTrac survey. In anticipation of needing to assist hospitals in internally organizing data, the AHA is making available to all hospitals a FREE claim level Excel tool to get you started.

Please read the terms and conditions for the use of the AHA claim-level tool.

RACTrac Webinars
View webinars on AHA's RACTrac rollout and the claim-level tracking tool.

AHA RACTrac Brochure
Please distribute this RACTrac brochure at your RAC-related meetings to help get the word out about the availability of this claim level tracking tool on the AHA website.

If you have any questions regarding RACTrac please contact our support line at 1-888-RAC-TR1C
(1-888-722-8712) or RACTracSupport@providercs.com.