Open Recommendations

Verify and post death information, where appropriate, for the remaining beneficiaries in the State Death population.

Instruct technicians to take appropriate actions on the remaining beneficiaries in the Death Suspense population.

Establish systems criteria to identify Old-age, Survivors and Disability Insurance beneficiaries in Address Suspense who are likely deceased, such as identifying beneficiaries suspended for prolonged periods who do not have activity on any Social Security Administration (SSA) records since their suspension. Once established, SSA should update policy to instruct technicians to search for death information.

Develop systems controls to alert technicians when SSA receives death information from sources, such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), for beneficiaries in suspended payment status.

Revise policy to instruct technicians to conduct additional searches for death information when developing suspension actions.

Clarify policy for establishing dates of death for beneficiaries suspended based on a report from Treasury of a returned payment for death.

Review the SCRM NIST guidance and update the SCRM plan, policies, and procedures to fully address supply chain risk management controls and practices.

Upon issuance of the CUI policies, design and implement media marking to designate protection standards for safeguarding and/ordisseminating agency information.

We recommend that the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs develop and distribute to staff a quick reference document that includes: o key staff responsibilities for coordinating and vouchering both invitational and staff travel in accordance with the FTR and the HHS Travel Policy Manual and the resources available to staff for ensuring that travel card transactions are compliant with these Federal travel regulations and o a requirement that staff and supervisors read and sign the HHS Traveler Agreement.

We recommend that the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs establish an oversight program that includes the following: o approving officials reviewing and signing travel authorizations and vouchers only after verifying that the types of expenses claimed are authorized and allowable, the amounts claimed are accurate, and the required receipts are attached to the voucher, o Program Coordinators verifying that all cardholders take the initial IBA card training course, and o Program Coordinators regularly using the online reporting capabilities provided by the servicing bank to monitor for potential travel card misuse and delinquency trends.

CMS should provide training for nursing homes on Federal requirements for facility-initiated discharge notices.

CMS should assess the effectiveness of its enforcement of inappropriate facility-initiated discharges.

CMS should implement its deferred initiatives to address inappropriate facility-initiated discharges.

ACL should assist State Ombudsman programs in establishing a data-collection system for facility-initiated discharge notices

ACL should establish guidance for analysis and reporting of data collected by State Ombudsman programs from facility-initiated discharge notices.

ACL and CMS should coordinate to strengthen safeguards to protect nursing home residents from inappropriate facility-initiated discharges.

ACL and CMS should ensure that all State Ombudsmen, State agencies, and CMS ROs have an ongoing venue to share information about facility-initiated discharges and potentially other systemic problems in nursing homes.

Develop a departmentwide human capital plan or evaluate and revise existing plans to guide the recruitment, retention, and skill development of staff involved in IT acquisitions. The plan should include related metrics to measure plan implementation and effectiveness.

Evaluate IT acquisition process workflows and identify ways to simplify the processes, facilitate more effective stakeholder coordination across offices, and create efficiencies when possible. Status

Establish a centralized acquisition tracking system that allows for input and monitoring by all offices involved with the IT acquisition process by: a. Developing a plan with detailed implementation milestones; b. Obtaining appropriate approvals and funding; and c. Implementing a centralized acquisition tracking system, based on the implementation plan and approvals from 4a and 4b.

Determine and document the conditions or parameters under which the use of remote video to conduct off-site partial compliance evaluations is feasible from a legal, technical, and programmatic perspective.

Finalize the Remote Video Partial Compliance Evaluation workgroup’s standard operating procedures.

Determine whether and how remote video can be used in conjunction with a document review to qualify as a full-compliance evaluation for purposes of the Clean Air Act Stationary Source Compliance Monitoring Strategy and provide instruction to state and local agencies.

We recommend that DHS (Drawbacks) continue to communicate the appropriate retention period to claimants and brokers;

We recommend that DHS (Seized and forfeited property) enhance existing controls, including communicating quality information and training individuals for key roles, to prevent and detect material errors in the seized property footnote.