Speaking this week at a meeting of regional, state and metropolitan hospital executives in Washington, D.C., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Financial Management Director Tim Hill announced a revised timeline for the nationwide rollout of the permanent recovery audit contractor program. RACs will not begineducation and outreach to providers in the first round of states until Oct. 1; the second round until Mar. 1, 2009; and thethird round until at least Aug. 1, 2009. As of now, CMS still intends to announce the permanent RACs by Oct. 1; however, Hill said it isn’t likely hospitals in the first round would begin receiving demandletters orrequests for medical records until January 2009. RACs identify Medicare overpayments and underpayments and receive a percentage of the improper payments they collect from providers. For more information, visit the AHA Web site.