I know from my own husband. When a Medicare audit is coming up, he doesn’t sleep for days.

Now ApeniMED and Quest Diagnostics are partnering to make that arduous process a little easier for healthcare providers nationwide, with Quest Diagnostics' ChartMaxx enterprise content management (ECM) solution.

The NwHIN (Nationwide Health Information Network) recently developed a software solution to respond electronically to audit requests and the solution, eAudit from ApeniMED, will be integrated into the ChartMaxx platform to provide staff with 24/7 access to complete patient medical records to streamline the submission process of Medicare audit responses.

Healthcare providers’ reasons for needing an easier, more convenient way to deal with audits is two-pronged: the number of Medicare audits continues to rise while reimbursements rates fall. Providers are looking for any way to make the process less time-consuming and costly, especially since today, healthcare providers must adhere to strict audit deadlines and provide hundreds of pages of documents to audit contractors in the format needed.

Working together, ApeniMED's eAudit submission and tracking solution, integrated with ChartMaxx's ECM solution, accomplish just that, by encrypting the audit information and sending it electronically directly to CMS, streamlining the process and speeding reimbursement to hospitals and independent delivery networks.

"We are very excited to work with our partner ChartMaxx from Quest Diagnostics to help their customers save time and money in this important process," said ApeniMED president Will Sigsbee.

Providers may get some relief soon. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is questioning the role auditing contractors should play in the Medicare program, saying the audits place burdensome requirements on physicians and hospitals, according to a story by Charles Fiegl.

Under Medicare regulations, recovery audit contractors can review a claim for any reason if it is less than a year old. Within four years, the auditors must have good cause to reopen the claim. After four years, there must be clear evidence of fraud to revisit the claim, Alicia Gallegos reported.

And the audits are on the rise. Medicare's investigators are going high-tech to fight fraud, with the recent opening of a $3.6 million command center that features a giant screen and the latest computer and communications gear to keep people working on the problem in touch around the world.