The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced aggressive new steps to find and prevent waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare. CMS is working closer with beneficiaries and providers, consolidating its fraud detection efforts, strengthening its oversight of medical equipment suppliers, and home health agencies, and launching the national recovery audit contractor (RAC) program.

The new national RACs may be found at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/RAC/Downloads/RAC%20Expansion%20Schedule%20Web.pdf .

For more information, visit the CMS RAC Web site at: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/RAC/ .

You may also click on either the CMS Press Release issued October 6, 2008, or the RAC fact sheet , both of which are also available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/RAC/ in the Related Links Inside CMS section.