Federal Reports

The Office of Inspector General released a report examining NASA's management of its Earth science portfolio that includes Earth-orbiting satellites used to collect information on weather, climate, and natural phenomena such as earthquakes, droughts, and wildfires.

Management and Performance Challenges Facing the FLRA

With respect to Medicaid patient days, Wisconsin Physicians Service (WPS) did not properly settle Medicare cost reports submitted by Indiana hospitals for Medicare disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments in accordance with Federal requirements. The 48 selected providers improperly claimed a total of 14,325 Medicaid patient days on their Medicare cost reports, resulting in DSH overpayments totaling $6.1 million. These improper claims included both unallowable and unsupported patient days and involved separate Child Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) recipients, Aid to Residents in County Homes (ARCH) recipients, 590 Program recipients, and dual eligibles.

TrustSolutions, LLC, claimed unallowable pension costs of $62,000 for Medicare reimbursement for calendar years 2007 through 2009.

Claims for outpatient physical therapy services provided by a physical therapy practice (the practice), located in Yuba City, California, did not comply with Medicare requirements. Specifically, of the 100 beneficiary days in our random sample, the practice properly claimed Medicare reimbursement for 36 beneficiary days. However, the practice improperly claimed Medicare reimbursement for the remaining 64 beneficiary days, consisting of 62 beneficiary days that had therapy services that were not medically necessary and 2 beneficiary days that did not meet Medicare documentation requirements. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that the practice received at least $583,000 in unallowable Medicare reimbursement for outpatient physical therapy services that did not comply with Medicare requirements.

ARC Semi-Annual report to Congress

This Semiannual Report to Congress summarizes the activities of our office for the 6-month period

This Semiannual Report to Congress summarizes the activities of our office for the 6-month period

The OIG updated the agency's top management challenges, issued a mandatory report to the Congress on the status of NEA’s implementation of the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, issued a report on our review of a Single Audit involving an NEA grantee, and collaborated with the NEA to establish a more collaborative and disciplined audit follow-up process to facilitate resolution of OIG recommendations. Finally, we referred two Freedom of Information Act requests to NEA for processing, evaluated seven hotline inquiries and took appropriate action to address the inquires, and completed a policy review as required by the IG Act. The annual financial statement and FISMA audits are in progress and will be completed by their respective deadlines.

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (State agency) did not always use the correct Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAPs) when processing Medicaid claim adjustments reported on the CMS-64. Of the 23,693,045 Medicaid claim adjustments we reviewed, we determined that 23,274,319 adjustments used the correct FMAP or did not result in a payment difference. However, the remaining 418,726 claim adjustments were paid using incorrect FMAPs, resulting in a net overpayment to the State agency of $1.9 million (Federal share). These errors occurred because the State agency did not have adequate internal controls to process public provider claim adjustments in accordance with Federal requirements. Specifically, the State agency did not report public provider increasing claim adjustments using the FMAP associated with the original claim as required.

This is an audit of the NEA's balance sheets as of September 30, 2015 and 2014, and the related statements of net cost, changes in net position, and budgetary resources (financial statements) for the years then ended, and the related notes to the financial statements. The objective of the audit was to express an opinion on the fair representation of those financial statements. Additionally, the audit considered the NEA's internal control over financial reporting that could have a direct and material effect on its financial statements, but did not express an opinion on the effectiveness of internal control. The audit resulted in a clean opinion, with two significant deficiencies and 12 recommendations.

To view the report, please click on the link below.

To see our report, please click on the link below.

Semiannual Report to the Congress April 1, 2016 - September 30, 2016

This report summarizes the oversight work performed by EAC OIG during the 6-month period ended September 30, 2016.

This semiannual report is issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s(EEOC’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, asamended. It summarizes our activities and accomplishments for the period April 1, 2016, throughSeptember 30, 2016.

This report summarizes work we initiated and completed during this semiannual period on a number of critical Departmental activities. Over this 6-month period—in addition to issuing our annual Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Commerce—OIG completed 22 audits, inspections, responses to Congressional requests, and public investigative reports, as well as 2 Congressional testimonies.

Cotton & Company LLP independent report on the NARA's enterprise-wide risk assessment of internal controls and the risks to NARA’s mission, operations, and procedures.

The New York State Department of Health claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursement for dental services billed by a New York City dentist that did not comply with certain Federal and State requirements. Of the 100 randomly selected claims that we reviewed, 88 claims complied with Federal and State requirements. However, for the remaining 12 claims, the dentist who performed the services was not enrolled in the Medicaid program because their Medicaid enrollment status was not verified prior to the services being provided. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that the State agency claimed at least $64,400 in Federal reimbursement for unallowable dental services billed by the New York City dentist.

Semiannual Report

The North Dakota Department of Human Services' (State agency) claims for Medicaid reimbursement for Targeted Case Management (TCM) services provided and paid for during Federal fiscal years (FYs) 2013 and 2014 were not always in accordance with Federal requirements. Specifically, the State agency claimed at least $349,000 (Federal share) of unallowable Medicaid reimbursement and an estimated $862,000 (Federal share) of potentially unallowable Medicaid reimbursement for TCM services during this period. These errors occurred because the State agency did not have adequate policies and procedures in place to ensure that the TCM services it claimed were allowable for Medicaid reimbursement in accordance with Federal requirements.

The OIG audited Information Technology's (IT) use of non-craft staff augmentation (SA) contractor employees working in IT positions during February 2016 for which TVA paid about $1.8 million in labor costs and associated labor markups. Overall, we found the majority of the 207 SA contractor employees had straight-time hourly pay rates less than or equal to TVA midpoint hourly pay rates and the rates were comparable to TVA employee pay rates for the corresponding job codes. However, we also found (1) TVA management's approval of SA contractor employee compensation exceeding the midpoint rate did not take into account the contractor's indirect cost markup rates applied to the pay rate, (2) IT does not currently have a policy in place requiring knowledge transfer from contractor to TVA employees, (3) manual data entry is required to update minimum and midpoint pay rates from TVA human resource information system, People Lifecycle Unified System (PLUS), into TVA's contractor system, IQNavigator (IQN), and (4) IQN compares a contractor employee's hourly rate change (e.g., pay increase) to the midpoint rate in effect for the job code when the assignment was made, rather than to the current midpoint rate unless a new assignment is created.

Taxpayers on the hook for billions TARP dollars to be paid to Ocwen, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Nationstar & others who keep abusing homeowners and breaking federal rules in HAMP

This report includes EAC OIG’s independent assessment of the top management challenges facing EAC in fiscal year 2017.

SIGTARP's Quarterly Report to Congress

CNCS-OIG completed its investigation into Hotline allegations that AmeriCorps members assigned to the Martha O'Bryan Center (MOBC), Nashville, TN, a subgrantee of the Volunteer Tennessee (Commission), Nashville, TN, may have engaged in prohibited activities.

CNCS management reported possible fraud involving RSVP grantee TCU Community Partnership Inc. (TCU), Conyers, GA, after its management drew down $20,750 of Federal grant funds and failed to enroll any volunteers and fulfill the terms and conditions of the grant.

The OIG audited the physical and logical network architecture at a TVA location and found (1) TVA management used proven best practices in the design of the physical and wireless corporate networks; (2) the network was appropriately architected; and (3) the cable plant was installed in a neat and organized manner. However, we found the TVA network equipment was located in an unsecured room and configurations of some network devices did not follow TVA suggested baselines.(Summary Only)

The Arizona Department of Health Services, Division of Licensing Services, Bureau of Long-Term Care Licensing (State agency), did not always verify nursing homes' correction of deficiencies identified during surveys in calendar year (CY) 2014 in accordance with Federal requirements. For the 100 sampled deficiencies, the State agency verified the nursing homes' correction of 58 deficiencies but did not obtain the nursing homes' evidence of correction for the remaining 42 deficiencies, which were all less serious deficiencies. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that the State agency did not verify nursing homes' correction of deficiencies in accordance with Federal requirements for 361 (56 percent) of the 650 deficiencies identified during surveys in CY 2014. The State agency's practice for less serious deficiencies was to accept the nursing homes' correction plans as confirmation of substantial compliance without obtaining the required evidence of correction.

Seek link below for the full report, report summary, multimedia or any agency follow-up.

From July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013, the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (State agency) paid $78.2 million to 73 eligible hospitals in Virginia for Medicaid EHR incentive payments. We reviewed hospitals that received an incentive payment totaling $1 million or more. There were 15 hospitals that each received total incentive payments exceeding $1 million; however, because the State agency contracted with a public accounting firm to perform desk reviews of hospitals' cost reports, we limited our audit to 5 hospitals that were not reviewed by the accounting firm at the time of our audit. The State agency made incorrect EHR incentive payments to two hospitals totaling $38,000. We recommended that the State agency refund the $38,000 in net overpayments made to the two hospitals and adjust the two hospitals' remaining incentive payments to account for the incorrect calculations (which will result in future cost savings of $38,000); and (3) review the calculations for the hospitals not included in the five we reviewed to determine whether payment adjustments are needed, and refund any overpayments identified. In written comments on our draft report, the State agency noted that its public accounting firm conducted post payment audits at the two hospitals and identified additional overpayments that it addressed after we completed our fieldwork.

In eight previous audits, we identified instances in which State Medicaid agencies (State agencies) did not always comply with Federal requirements in administering their Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waiver programs. Specifically, we found that State agencies did not always exclude unallowable room-and-board costs when determining payment rates under the HCBS waiver program, resulting in unallowable Medicaid reimbursement. Our previous audits also conveyed certain other findings that resulted in unallowable and unsupported Medicaid reimbursement. The State agencies did not have adequate controls to ensure that their HCBS waiver programs complied with applicable Federal requirements regarding the need to exclude unallowable room-and-board costs when determining payment rates and to ensure that certain other costs complied with the requirements associated with their HCBS waiver programs. As a result of the inadequate controls regarding unallowable room-and-board costs and certain other unallowable and unsupported costs, the State agencies claimed at least $176.5 million (Federal share) in unallowable and unsupported Federal Medicaid reimbursement for services under their HCBS waiver programs.

This is a publication by GAO's Inspector General that concerns internal GAO operations. This report was submitted to the Comptroller General in accordance with Section 5 of the Government Accountability Office Act of 2008. The report summarizes the activities of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the second reporting period of fiscal year 2016.

Most Medicare payments for chiropractic services did not comply with Medicare requirements. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that $358.8 million, or approximately 82 percent, of the $438.1 million paid by Medicare for chiropractic services was unallowable. These overpayments occurred because CMS's controls were not effective in preventing payments for medically unnecessary chiropractic services.

The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 requires that the Inspector General provide a summary of our perspective on the most serious management and performance challenges facing the agency and a brief assessment of the agency’s progress in addressing those challenges. The management challenges in this document are based on work conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and discussions with senior leaders at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The New York State Department of Health (State agency) did not always pay electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments in accordance with Federal and State requirements. The State agency made incorrect EHR incentive payments to two hospitals totaling $175,000. Because the incentive payment is calculated once and then paid out over 3 years, payments after June 30, 2014, will also be incorrect. The adjustments to these payments total $19,000. The State agency correctly paid the five professionals we reviewed.

Top management challenges.