Federal Reports

Marc Hoang, a pharmacist based in West Covina, California, was sentenced on January 8, 2024, in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, for making a false statement related to a health care fraud investigation. Hoang was sentenced to two years’ probation.Our investigation found that Hoang knowingly and willfully made a materially false and fraudulent statement on a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) form. Hoang submitted the form to the DEA to renew the controlled substances registration for his former pharmacy. On the form, Hoang represented that he was the person who distributed the controlled substances and was the officer and point of contact for the pharmacy, when in fact, he was not. Hoang was part of a large health care fraud scheme, in which beneficiaries were solicited to provide their insurance information to a pharmacist for medication they did not seek or need. As a result of the scheme, Amtrak’s health care plan was billed $32,489 of which $26,962 was paid, and Tricare, the U.S. military’s health care plan, paid $12,264,685 on the fraudulently submitted claims.

(December 2023) The IC IG has released its semiannual report to the DNI and Congress for the period of April 1, 2023 - September 30, 2023

We are providing this summary report for your information and use. Our objective was to provide a joint report on actions taken during calendar years 2021 and 2022 to carry out the requirements of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.

Due to the importance of monitoring the performance of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Safety Program, the TVA Office of Inspector General (OIG) performed an evaluation of TVA’s health and safety committees (HSC). The objective of this evaluation was to determine if HSCs were effectively monitoring the remediation of identified safety concerns. The TVA OIG determined TVA HSCs are generally effective at monitoring the remediation of identified safety concerns. However, there were limited instances when safety concerns were not monitored or remediation plans were not established. In addition, we found some HSCs were not following requirements to meet at least quarterly and maintain meeting minutes.

Amtrak (the company) contracted with the independent certified public accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP to audit its consolidated financial statements as of September 30, 2023, and for the year then ended, and to provide a report on internal control over financial reporting and on compliance and other matters. Because the company receives federal assistance, it must obtain an audit performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.As required by the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, we monitored the audit activities of Ernst & Young to help ensure audit quality and compliance with auditing standards. Our monitoring focused on two Ernst & Young reports and disclosed no instances in which Ernst & Young did not comply, in all material respects, with generally accepted government auditing standards. We reached this conclusion by monitoring Ernst & Young’s audit activities, which included reviewing its reports, auditor independence and qualifications, audit plans, detailed testing results, summary work papers, and quality controls. We also attended key meetings.Our review disclosed no instances in which Ernst & Young did not comply, in all material respects, with generally accepted government auditing standards.

We determined whether the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) ensured that Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) participants maintained control of land enrolled in CSP contracts.