Federal Reports

The Postal Service’s Peak Season lasts about eight weeks, starting on or around Thanksgiving Day in November and ending on or around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January. Since FY 2018, the average cost of the Postal Service’s air network per day during Peak Season increased from $8.7 million to $9.8 million (12.6 percent increase). The highest Peak Season average volume per day was [redacted] million pounds in FY 2019. Despite less volume during the FY 2020 Peak Season (November 28, 2019 – January 20, 2020), the cost per pound to transport mail by air continued to rise – from [redacted] in FY 2018 to [redacted] in FY 2020 (10.9 percent increase). Our objective was to assess the Postal Service’s efforts to reduce Peak Season air transportation operational costs while maintaining service during fiscal year (FY) 2019 and FY 2020.

Our objective for this report was to assess the extent to which the company is incorporating its injury claims financial data into its Safety Management System (SMS).We found that the company’s Safety and Operations departments currently use injury and accident reports to identify the most frequent incidents in their efforts to assess and manage safety risks and inform the SMS. These departments have not, however, had regular access to company data on employee and passenger injury claims, including settlement data, which resides with the company’s claims group. Our work determined these data could allow the Safety and Operations departments to better identify additional risks and mitigation strategies and, in turn, help improve safety outcomes and minimize the impact of safety incidents on the company.We recommended that the company develop a policy and process to regularly share legally appropriate injury claims data internally and use these data to help identify and mitigate safety risks as part of its risk management process.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) performed an audit of the Research, Education, and Economics mission area within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to test its controls to prevent, detect, mitigate, and recover from a ransomware attack.

Under the home health prospective payment system (PPS), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pays home health agencies (HHAs) a standardized payment for each 60-day episode of care that a beneficiary receives. The PPS payment covers intermittent skilled nursing and home health aide visits, therapy (physical, occupational, and speech-language pathology), medical social services, and medical supplies.Our prior audits of home health services identified significant overpayments to HHAs. These overpayments were largely the result of HHAs improperly billing for services to beneficiaries who either were not confined to home (homebound) or were not in need of skilled services.Our objective was to determine whether Brookdale Home Health, LLC (Brookdale), complied with Medicare requirements for billing home health services on selected types of claims.