Federal Reports

The OIG worked with an expert in postal costing and economics to analyze product cost changes in four traditional USPS products: First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Periodicals, and Package Services. The analysis compares costs from fiscal year (FY) 2006 to FY 2015. Four external factors drove product cost changes: inflation, change in product mix, individual volume change, and overall volume decline. The report attributes the remaining change in unit costs to other factors, some which are at least partially within the Postal Service’s control. When the main cost factors over which the Postal Service has no real control over are accounted for, unit costs were lower in FY 2015 than in FY 2006 for First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, and Package Services. Only Periodicals’ unit costs increased.

In accordance with the Office of National Drug Control Policy Circular, “Accounting of Drug Control Funding and Performance Summary,” we authenticated the Department’s accounting of FY 2016 drug control funds and performance measures for key drug control programs by expressing a conclusion about the reliability of each assertion made in the Department’s accounting report and performance report. Based on our review, nothing came to our attention that caused us to believe that management’s assertions contained in the Department’s detailedaccounting report and performance summary report were not fairly stated in all material respects

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

OIG initiated the audit to determine whether (1) the Library’s internal controls over the program are appropriately designed and (2) the controls are effectively working. In the course of conducting the audit, OIG determined that the OCFO needs to strengthen the purchase card program’s internal control environment.

Medicare acute-care hospitals must report wage data annually to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Wage data include wages, associated hours, and wage-related costs. CMS uses the wage data to calculate acute-care hospital wage indexes, which measure geographic area labor market costs relative to a national average. Federal law requires CMS to annually adjust Medicare hospital payments to reflect local labor markets; CMS uses area wage indexes to do this. Federal law also requires that the area wage indexes applied to hospitals in urban areas of a State may not be less than the area wage index of hospitals located in rural areas in that State. This provision is known as the "rural floor." Section 3141 of the Affordable Care Act requires that CMS apply this rural floor in a manner that is budget neutral on a national level. Accordingly, to balance the increase in wage indexes for hospitals receiving the benefit of their States' rural floors, CMS must lower wage indexes nationally by applying a rural floor budget neutrality factor.

Jackson-Madison County General Hospital (the Hospital), located in Jackson, Tennessee, complied with Medicare billing requirements for 141 of the 200 inpatient claims that we reviewed. However, the Hospital did not fully comply with Medicare billing requirements for the remaining 59 claims, resulting in net overpayments of approximately $189,000 for the audit period. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that the Hospital received overpayments of at least $1.4 million for the audit period. These errors occurred primarily because the Hospital did not have adequate controls to prevent the incorrect billing of Medicare claims within the selected risk areas that contained errors.