Federal Reports

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

Semiannual Report to the Congress October 1, 2015 - March 31, 2016

Semiannual Report

This report summarizes the oversight work performed by EAC OIG during the 6-month period ended March 31, 2016.

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

From October 1, 2011, through September 30, 2012, the California Department of Health Care Services claimed at least $516,000 in unallowable enhanced Federal reimbursement for Medicaid family planning drugs provided in Los Angeles County that did not comply with certain Federal requirements.

During the course of our fieldwork, we learned of two FSA initiatives that pertain to identifying and addressing misrepresentation by schools. FSA is in the process of implementing a new student complaints tracking system, called Enterprise, and a Student Aid Enforcement Unit. One of the four divisions of the new unit will be an investigations division that will identify potential misconduct, such as misrepresentation, or high-risk activity among schools and protect Federal funding. We are closing this audit because FSA plans to implement these two initiatives throughout 2016; these two initiatives will be significant control activities that represent major changes to FSA’s process for identifying and addressing misrepresentation by schools.

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.

Non-Bank private mortgage servicers who have already received more than $1 billion from Treasury are increasing their participation in HAMP, which raises risks to homeowners and the need for significant oversight.

Lafayette General Medical Center (the Hospital) (operating in Louisiana) complied with Medicare billing requirements for 34 of the 103 inpatient claims and all 31 outpatient claims. However, the Hospital did not fully comply with Medicare billing requirements for the remaining 69 inpatient claims. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that the Hospital received overpayments of at least $4.4 million for claims paid during 2013 and 2014.

SIGTARP's Quarterly Report to Congress

Between 2013 and 2015, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), Bethesda, MD, allowed a few AmeriCorps members to provide emotional support (doula care) to women during abortion procedures at three New York City clinics operated by the Institute for Family Health (IFH), a subgrantee. Investigators discovered that NACHC had disregarded the direction of CNCS’s General Counsel in 2010 to include in its training materials and member agreements the abortion prohibition precisely as stated in the Serve America Act.

For this review of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA’s) Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program, the objectives were to (1) determine the progress of Polar Follow-On program planning, (2) monitor ongoing JPSS acquisition and development (i.e., JPSS-1 and JPSS-2 missions), and (3) assess the extent of potential data gaps. We have conducted oversight of the JPSS program since its inception; this is our fourth report on the program and related activities.

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, as amended. Itsummarizes our activities and accomplishments for the period October 1, 2015 through March 31, 2016.

Federal law requires that each Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) have its information security program evaluated annually by an independent entity, and these evaluations must address the eight major requirements enumerated in the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). To comply with this provision, CMS contracted with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to evaluate information security programs at the MACs, using a set of agreed-upon procedures. To satisfy the requirement to evaluate the information security controls for a subset of systems, CMS expanded the scope of its evaluations to test segments of the Medicare claims processing systems hosted at the Medicare data centers, which support each of the MACs.

The United States Capitol Police (USCP or Department) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) oversees administrative investigations relating to the conduct of Department personnel as well as inspections of its organizational components. OPR also records and investigates allegations of misconduct by USCP employees generated from within the Department or outside sources.  The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an independent inspection of OPR. Our primary objectives were to determine if the Department (1) established adequate internal controls and processes for ensuring the integrity of its program, and (2) complied with applicable policies and procedures as well as applicable laws, regulations, and best practices. Our scope included internal controls, processes, and operations during Calendar Year (CY) 2015.

The OIG audited cyber security at a power generation facility to determine (1) the adequacy of physical and environmental controls, logical security controls, network infrastructure controls, and general controls such as backup and recovery, change control, and incident response, and (2) compliance with the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA). In summary, we found opportunities for improvement in the areas of (1) physical access and environmental controls, (2) logical access controls, (3) network infrastructure controls, and (4) general controls. Additionally, during our review of MTSA requirements, we found no issues with compliance. Lastly, we identified no control weaknesses during our testing of (1) a sample of business network laptops, desktops, and servers, (2) wireless access points, and (3) modems. TVA management generally agreed with our findings and recommendations.(Summary Only)

For our final report on the evaluation of the budgetary controls over the Census Bureau’s Working Capital Fund, we assessed the controls for building overhead rates and distributing charges to projects, reviewed the appropriateness of the level of fund balances, and evaluated compliance with appropriations law.

Tufts Medical Center (Tufts) (operating in Boston, Massachusetts) complied with Medicare billing requirements for 4 of the 18 inpatient and outpatient claims we reviewed. However, Tufts did not fully comply with Medicare billing requirements for the remaining 14 claims, resulting in overpayments of at least $118,000 for calendar years 2011 through 2014. These errors occurred primarily because Tufts staff (1) had inadequate education on inpatient level-of-care criteria and lacked documentation necessary to determine the appropriate level of service and (2) lacked the level of oversight and the coordination between departments to correctly report the device credits it received for warranted or recalled medical devices.

Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC, understated its Medicare segment pension assets by $2.2 million and TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, LLC, understated its Medicare segment pension assets by $180,000 as of January 1, 2005. Both Palmetto and TrailBlazer were subsidiaries of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina during our audit period.

Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina, claimed unallowable pension costs of $132,000 for Medicare reimbursement for fiscal years 2003 and 2004.

TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, LLC, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina, claimed unallowable pension costs of $341,000 for Medicare reimbursement for fiscal years 2003 and 2004.

Improper payments to healthcare providers constitute a significant vulnerability for Medicaid, costing an estimated $17.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. Automated claims processing safeguards called "edits" are critical program integrity tools that are available to State Medicaid agencies to prevent these improper payments. The Affordable Care Act required all States to implement the Medicaid National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) edits by October 1, 2010. The NCCI edits are designed to encourage providers to code correctly by automatically denying fee-for-service Medicaid payments for services that do not meet basic medical or billing standards.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) uses bulk industrial gases, including oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide as part of its normal operations. Due to hazards associated with handling bulk industrial gases and the importance of worker and public safety at TVA, the OIG initiated an audit of TVA's mitigation of risks from bulk industrial gases. We limited our scope to the explosive and flammable risks of hydrogen and oxygen and the asphyxiation risks of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Our objective was to determine whether TVA designed mitigating actions for fire, explosion, and asphyxiation risks related to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide bulk industrial gases. We determined TVA designed mitigating actions for fire, explosion, and asphyxiation risks related to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide bulk industrial gases. However, we identified several areas for improvement to further mitigate the risks from bulk industrial gases. Specifically, we found (1) contract terms did not require a supplier to provide TVA with inspection and maintenance reports for bulk gas tanks, (2) emergency plans do not list types and quantities of on-site gases, and (3) unsecured portable compressed gas cylinders at Gallatin Fossil Plant and Widows Creek Fossil Plant. We recommended the Senior Vice President, Power Operations, update site emergency plans to identify types and quantities of compressed gases and cryogenic fluids stored at generating plants and assess the root cause of unsecured compressed gas cylinders at Gallatin Fossil Plant and Widows Creek Fossil Plant and address as appropriate. In addition, we recommended the Vice President, Supply Chain, amend gas supplier contracts to require suppliers to provide TVA with inspection and maintenance reports that show contractor compliance with appropriate inspection/maintenance-related codes and regulations and enable TVA to confirm the supplier is meeting its obligations for tank safety. TVA management agreed with our findings and provided the actions they have taken or plan to take to address each of our recommendations.