Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina Overstated Its Excess Plan Partial Medicare Segment Pension Assets as of January 1, 2017

Medicare contractors are required to separately account for Medicare segment pension plan assets based on the requirements of Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) 412 and 413.The HHS, OIG, Office of Audit Services, Region VII pension audit team reviews Medicare segment pension assets to ensure compliance with Federal regulations. Previous OIG audits found that Medicare contractors did not always correctly identify and update the segmented pension assets.Our objective was to determine whether Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina (BCBS South Carolina) complied with Federal requirements and its established cost accounting practice when updating its Excess Plan Partial Medicare segment pension assets from January 1, 2015, to January 1, 2017.