Open Recommendations

We recommend that DHS enforce policies and procedures to use reliable data in accrual calculations.

We recommend that DHS implement controls to ensure all necessary journal entries are completely recorded each period.

Implement a postpayment edit process to detect claims submitted by suppliers processed before a beneficiary's notice of election of hospice care is processed in the CWF, and instruct the DME Medicare contractors to deny DMEPOS claims identified by the edit process if they do no have the GW modifier.

Study the feasibility of including palliative items and services not related to a beneficiary's terminal illness and related conditions within the hospice per diem. Such a requirement would eliminate the need for Medicare to make additional payments for these services consistent with CMS's longstanding position that payments for services unrelated to a beneficiary's terminal illness and related conditions should be exceptional, unusual, and rare given the comprehensive nature of the services covered under the Medicare hospice benefit. In analyzing the feasibility of such a change, CMS could consider: (1) beneficiary access to care, (2) administrative costs, (3) appropriate adjustments to…

Rec. 1.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness ensure the Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System, when fully implemented, provides human resources officials within the Department the capability to match individual civilian personnel to specific authorized and budgeted positions across all DoD Components in order to assist in identification and closing of skill gaps.

Rec. 1.b.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the Military Departments and DoD Components, identify relevant performance metrics related to hiring a sufficient and well-qualified DoD overseas civilian workforce (such as vacancy/hire/fill rates) that account for unique overseas conditions.

Rec. 1.b.2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the Military Departments and DoD Components, incorporate the metrics in relevant human capital planning documents or systems.

Rec. 1.b.3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the Military Departments and DoD Components, use the metrics to monitor improvement in the hiring of the overseas civilian workforce.

Rec. 1.c.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the civilian human resources agencies of the Military Departments and DoD Components, capture and disseminate overseas civilian hiring guidance that identifies best practices to allow workforce owners to collect and report data on vacant positions, also known as skills gaps, in a standardized format to support DoD-wide analysis.

Rec. 1.c.2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the civilian human resources agencies of the Military Departments and DoD Components, capture and disseminate overseas civilian hiring guidance that identifies best practices to allow workforce owners to supplement the Office of Personnel Management 80-day, end-to-end hiring initiative to account for the additional hiring actions, including the permanent change of station process, needed to onboard employees at overseas locations.

Rec. 1.c.3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the civilian human resources agencies of the Military Departments and DoD Components, capture and disseminate overseas civilian hiring guidance that identifies best practices to allow workforce owners to assist human resources officials at overseas locations in developing practical local hiring timelines to minimize the quantity and duration of vacancies among overseas positions and to aid in the transition of duties.

Develop and implement a quality review process at the local Regional Office level that includes review of the data at key points during the case life cycle

Develop and implement a standard methodology for documenting data in the NxGen case file

Enforce the existing policies and procedures, which includes forwarding accounts receivable source documents to the Cincinnati Finance Center, in accordance with the time frame provided in the applicable resource management directives.

Develop an Artemis-wide cost estimate, in accordance with best practices, that is updated on an annual basis.

Maintain an accounting of per-mission costs to increase transparency and establish a benchmark against which NASA can assess the outcome of initiatives to increase the affordability of ESD systems.

Perform a risk assessment over the current state of the conversion to ARC and work jointly with ARC, senior leadership, Office of Chief Risk Officer, and functional groups affected by the risk to develop a mitigation strategy and execute a realistic and properly designed corrective action plan. (new)

Continue coordinating with ARC to ensure that its accounting platform is compatible with AmeriCorps’ operations and the type of accounting transactions that AmeriCorps processes. (Modified Repeat).

Conduct a review of transactions processed in Momentum and already migrated to Oracle through interface or reported in Oracle using journal entries, to ensure that correct object class codes were applied. (New)

Establish controls and training to ensure that each functional office/unit performs an independent assessment of internal controlsto inform the CEO’s statement of assurance, even if unfavorable outcomes are expected. This proactive approach will promote the early detection of potential findings and allow for prompt remediation. (New).

Develop and implement audit readiness procedures to ensure that audit information is complete, accurate, has undergone proper quality control procedures, and readily available or can be retrieved timely. The audit readiness procedures should include audit coordination protocol with ARC that clearly define roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in the process. (New)

Continue working with Administrative Resource Center to review and correct AmeriCorps’ balances in detail to ensure they are properly supported and that balances migrated to the ARC platform are complete, accurate, and reliable. (Modified Repeat)

Strengthen its policies and procedures over the processing of JEs going forward now that AmeriCorps has transitioned to the shared service environment. The policies and procedures should cover the following:

A process to track the sequence of JE transactions for completeness.

A policy as to when it is appropriate to use a JE and approval procedures for JEs recorded to ensure segregation of duties.