Federal Reports

During this reporting period, we issued the audit of National Endowment for the Art’s (NEA) fiscal year 2015 financial statements, two audit reports on grantees, one special review report on NEA compliance with information security, one memorandum report on NEA management challenges, one briefing review on internal compliance, and issued one desk audit review and summary of a grantee Single Audit. Also, the NEA issued two debarments resulting from recommendations of a prior Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit report. Additionally, the OIG issued and posted several Awareness Bulletins and brochures. The annual financial statement audit was completed and resulted in a clean opinion, with one significant deficiency. The annual FISMA audit was completed and resulted in eight recommendations.

To bill for services they provide to beneficiaries, providers must enroll in Medicare and periodically revalidate this enrollment. Effective enrollment screening is an important tool in preventing Medicare fraud. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has sought to enhance the enrollment screening process with new antifraud tools such as placing providers in risk categories, increasing site visits, requiring fingerprinting, implementing an Automated Provider Screening system, and denying enrollment to providers whose owners have unresolved overpayments. This study examines CMS's early implementation of new screening tools intended to prevent illegitimate providers from enrolling in Medicare.