Open Recommendations

We recommended that the State agency ensure that it assigns a priority level to all incidents or complaints by the mandatory deadline.

We recommend that Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC decrease its Excess Plan Medicare segment pension assets by $9,196 and recognize $737,271 as the Excess Plan Palmetto Medicare segment pension assets as of January 1, 2017.

We recommend that Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC improve policies and procedures to ensure that going forward, it calculates Medicare segment pension assets in accordance with Federal requirements.

We recommend that Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC decrease its Excess Plan Medicare segment pension assets by $9,196 and recognize $737,271 as the Excess Plan Palmetto Medicare segment pension assets as of January 1, 2017.

We recommend that Palmetto Government Benefits Administrator, LLC improve policies and procedures to ensure that going forward, it calculates Medicare segment pension assets in accordance with Federal requirements.

Rec. C.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, in coordination with the Director of Manpower and Personnel for the National Guard Bureau, establish and implement a plan to identify whether the Challenge Program is achieving long-term benefits of providing opportunities for cadets to be productive citizens. The plan should include a process for collecting data beyond 1 year.

CMS should encourage MAOs to perform program integrity oversight using ordering NPIs.

We recommend EEOC's Office of Information Technology (OIT) review and remediate criticalrisk and high-risk vulnerabilities in accordance with EEOC OIT’s assessment of risk. Where risk acceptance is required for vulnerabilities based on EEOC's network operation, we recommend thatEEOC formally document the risk acceptance along with any associated mitigation activities.

We recommend that OPM modify FEHBP contract lanugage for all applicable records retention clauses to require the retention and accessibility of claims for 10 years plus the current year in a manner of OPM/HI's choosing.

We recommend OPM modify or add language in Section 1.9 of all FEHBP contracts to inlcude all relevant sections and attachments of CL 2017-13, or modify all FEHBP contracts to add relevant language stating that all CLs are an addendum to the contract language and enforceable as a contract requirement.

We recommend OPM modify or add language to the appropriate Section of the FFS and ER-HMO FEHBP contracts to state that all FWA-related recoveries must be deposited into the working capital or investment account within 30 days and returned to or accounted for in the FEHBP contingency reserve fund account within 60 days after receipt by the carrier.

We recommend that OPM add language to all FEHBP contracts requiring carriers to notify the OIG's Office of Investigations regarding their intention to share FEHBP fraudulent activity with outside parties, and obtain approval from OIG's Office of Investigations before sharing this information.

We recommend that OPM modify or add language to all FFS and ER-HMO FEHBP contracts requiring PBMs or providers under a Large Provider Agreement, who provide services or supplies related to benefit administration, to have an FWA program that meets the OPM contract and CL 2017-13 requirements.

We recommend that OPM modify the ER-HMO and FFS contracts to require that vendors under Large Provider Agreements return all FWA-related recoveries to the carrier within 30 days, whereby carriers must deposit these recoveries into their working capital or investment account within 30 days. Once deposited into one of these accounts, the carrier must return the recoveries to the contingency reserve fund.

We recommend that OPM modify Section 2.3(g) and 2.3(g)(ii) to provide expectations for how carriers are to proactively identify overpayments and to define what it means by egregious errors.

We recommend that OPM modify Section 2.3(g) requring carriers to report on their collection efforts, including how promptly the carrier initiated collection once the erroneous payment was identified and the causes of the claim payment errors.

We recommend that OPM review the current recovery process in Section 2.3(g)(1) through (5) and consider whether the use of benefit offsets, after the first written notification is sent, would be more cost efficient.

We recommend that OPM modify FEHBP contracts to clarify the Agency's authority to recoup projected improper payments identified by statistical sampling.

We recommend modifying Section 2.6(g), in the amendment to the Coordination of Benefits section of the FFS contract, to allow for the recovery of low dollar claims that result from claims system errors.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Provide training on how to determine the subsequent inspection when multiple inspections overlap, enter violations into the system in the same chronological order identified, be specific when writing the “Area or Equipment” entry, and when it is appropriate to list “No area affected” for an order.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Update system controls to improve compliance of MSHA violations with the Mine Act and MSHA guidance in the following instances: a. Verify only authorized violation types used; b. Include all required phrases automatically in the “Condition or Practice” entry when the inspector selects 103(a) citations, 104(g)(1) orders, 104(e)(1)/104(e)(2) orders, or 107(a) orders; c. Ensure 104(d) orders and 104(g)(1) orders cite eligible CFR sections; d. Verify the correlations between the CFR or Mine Act sections of 104(b) orders and the original violation; e. Verify 104(d)(1) orders, 104(d)(2) orders, 104(e)(1) orders, and…

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Improve the violations termination process by decreasing the percentage of future untimely terminations, improving the use of 104(b) orders, and not allowing due dates to be extended unless for specific, justified reasons listed on the violation form.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Develop a metric to measure performance and an internal control to verify timely uploading of violations from the inspector’s laptop/tablet into MCAS.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Complete periodic reviews to determine whether MSHA personnel are meeting the timely upload and recording of violations in MCAS, terminating violations by the due date, and effectively using 104(b) orders.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health: Work with the Solicitor’s Office and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission to implement a process to ensure violations listed in settlement agreements or court decisions still comply with the Mine Act and Mathies test.