Audits sting hospitals, physicians

Private audit companies are set to begin scouring mountains of medical records to determine if healthcare providers erred when billing Medicare and require them to return any overpayments to the federal government. In just three years since the program started, the contractors have returned more than $300 million to the federal government. Critics of the program say that contractors have too much incentive to question as many claims as possible because they get to keep about 20 percent of the overpayments.