Federal Reports

The United States currently faces a nationwide public health emergency due to the opioid crisis. Opioid treatment programs (OTPs) provide medication coupled with counseling services (referred to in this report as “OTP services”) for people diagnosed with an opioid use disorder. This audit is part of OIG’s oversight of the integrity and proper stewardship of Federal funds used to combat the opioid crisis. To perform an initial assessment of the risk of improper Medicaid reimbursement for OTP services, we selected for audit an OTP provider that received the highest Medicaid reimbursement for OTP services in California for calendar year 2018.Our objective was to determine whether California claimed Medicaid reimbursement for the selected provider’s OTP services in accordance with Federal and State requirements.

The Medicaid program pays for nonemergency medical transportation (NEMT) services that a State determines to be necessary for beneficiaries to obtain care. Prior OIG audit reports have consistently identified NEMT services as vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse.Our objectives were to determine whether Massachusetts: (1) claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursement for NEMT service claims in accordance with Federal and State requirements and (2) ensured that NEMT providers adequately documented driver qualifications and maintained vehicle records.We reviewed Massachusetts’s monitoring and oversight of its NEMT brokerage program, including compliance with certain Federal and State requirements to determine whether: (1) the beneficiary received a qualifying medical service on the date of transportation, (2) there was adequate documentation supporting the NEMT service, (3) the NEMT service was provided, and (4) driver and vehicle qualifications complied with State regulations. We reviewed 100 randomly sampled claim lines of service from the 896,792 lines of service between January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017, for which Massachusetts paid $17.3 million.

The DHS Privacy Office established a comprehensive framework to administer its privacy program. However, it does not yet have effective oversight to ensure consistent execution of its privacy program across DHS components. Specifically, the DHS Privacy Office has not established controls to ensure that privacy compliance documentation and Information Sharing Access Agreements are completed and submitted as required. The DHS Privacy Office did not monitor completion of required privacy training across the Department. These shortfalls existed because the DHS Privacy Office did not have sufficient measures in place to ensure DHS components adhered to its privacy program. Without such measures, DHS may not be able to identify and address new privacy risks in existing systems and programs or prevent inappropriate dissemination of personally identifiable information. We made three recommendations to the DHS Privacy Office to improve oversight of privacy compliance, information sharing access agreements, and privacy training. DHS concurred with all three recommendations.

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of the Commercial Energy Solutions Pricing, Structuring, Analysis/Contracts (P&C) organization to identify factors that could impact P&Cs organizational effectiveness. During the course of our evaluation, we identified behaviors that had a positive impact on P&C. These included positive interactions with management and team members. However, we also identified behavioral risks in two groups related to accountability and reporting concerns or offering a differing opinion with management. In addition, we identified risks to operations that could hinder P&C’s effectiveness. These risks were related to effective collaboration with business partners and resource needs in the organization.

The Postal Service is required to maintain a safe and healthy environment for both employees and customers in accordance with its internal policies and procedures1 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety laws. Our objective was to determine if Postal Service management is adhering to building maintenance, safety and security standards, and employee working condition requirements at post offices.

This is our final report on the audit of the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS’s) and the International Trade Administration’s (ITA’s) processes and procedures for reviewing and adjudicating product exclusion requests for aluminum and steel tariffs, as prescribed by Presidential Proclamations 9704 and 9705, respectively, under the authority of Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended. Our audit objectives were to determine whether (1) BIS and ITA adhere to the processes and procedures in place to review Section 232 product exclusion requests and (2) exclusion request decisions are reached in a consistent and transparent manner. We found that (I) U.S. companies were denied exclusion requests based on incomplete and contradictory information and (II) the Section 232 exclusion request review process lacked transparency. We also noted separate matters for BIS and ITA attention with respect to timeliness, completion, and communications regarding exclusion requests within an “Other Matters” section of this report.