Open Recommendations

Update the purchasing policy regarding purchase order issuance, to include, at a minimum, requirements for use of Postal Service Form 8203, signatures, and documentation retention requirements.

Develop and implement a tool, such as a checklist, to verify contracting personnel consistently complete, retain, and provide oversight of contract file documentation for each acquisition type.

Update the purchasing policy to designate and clearly describe the roles and responsibilities of each individual involved in the acquisition planning and contracting process.

Create a policy outlining comprehensive requirements to close contracts, including a checklist of closeout documentation.

Implement procedures to review and reconcile SCORE’s achievements reported in its quarterly performance reports to the performance results in the Entrepreneurial Development Management Information System (EDMIS) to ensure performance results are accurate and complete.

Coordinate with Experian to ensure SBA commercial loan data is reported in a manner that can be included in the credit reporting agency’s commercial credit files.

Establish communication protocols with Experian to address, resolve, and monitor commercial credit reporting issues.

Establish a written agreement for reporting loan data with Experian and other major commercial credit reporting agencies, as applicable.

Establish system controls to ensure FO employees submit their trust determinations in the Supplemental Security Income Trust Monitoring System for review and resolve any disagreements raised by the reviews before completing their final trust determinations in SSA’s systems.

Determine whether employees with the legal training and abilities needed to evaluate the impact trusts outlined in complex legal documents have on recipients’ SSI eligibility and payment amounts would make more accurate trust-related determinations. If they would make more accurate determinations, have those employees make them.

Establish metrics and controls to ensure for the timely review of FO employees’ trust determinations.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services work with the four States to determine what amount, if any, of the funding they received because of the increased COVID-19 FMAP should be refunded to the Federal Government.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services work with Minnesota to determine whether Medicaid enrollees were responsible for any cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing, services, or treatments and, if any cost-sharing is identified, work with Minnesota to ensure that enrollees are reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses incurred.

We recommend that Health Net of California, Inc. refund to the Federal Government the $69,182 of net overpayments.

We recommend that Health Net of California, Inc. continue to improve its policies and procedures to prevent, detect, and correct noncompliance with Federal requirements for diagnosis codes that are used to calculate risk-adjusted payments.

Develop and implement a process to prevent commingling of expenses, capitalizable costs within the same accounting structure (e.g., work item or work category), and verify that CWIP project balances.

Enhance existing processes to ensure all substantially completed projects are transferred from CWIP to PP&E for financial reporting purposes.

Modify existing processes to provide a timely transfer of CWIP to PP&E within the FIMS, thereby reducing the number of projects requiring a manual reclassification entry.

Enhance the existing allocation process to include all Reclamation balances before applying the established allocation rules.

Modify the existing allocation process to create a standard tie-point analysis that reconciles unallocated balances to the Reclamation-wide trial balance.

Evaluate the reliability of data utilized for purposes of preparing notes to the WFPS’ combined financial statements.

We recommend the Under Secretary for Management require the Office of the Chief Information Officer, in consultation with the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Cost Analysis Division, to issue an approved Operational Analysis Guidebook, to include, at a minimum: • Office of Management and Budget Circular No. A-11 guidance for components to conduct an operational analysis for information technology and non–information technology systems; and • The most current life cycle cost estimate document as the cost baseline for assessing system cost performance.

We recommend the Under Secretary for Management issue an instruction manual for conducting an operational analysis.

We recommend the Under Secretary for Management require Coast Guard’s Nationwide Automatic Identification System program to implement an effective corrective action plan to identify (1) the root cause of the performance deficiencies and (2) the steps needed to meet the performance measure baselines identified in the Acquisition Program Baseline.

Correct the 33 cases with improper payments in accordance with Social Security Administration (SSA) policy.

Correct the 45 cases without improper payments per SSA policy.

Provide training based on workload deficiencies identified in WC Quality Today Management Information.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the strike team in processing center 5 and whether strike teams should be established in other processing centers.

Review the 193,950 worker’s compensation cases in our population to identify and correct the estimated 151,281 cases with errors.

We recommend the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training obtain evidence from the states that ensures all EURGENO refunds and credits to which reimbursing employers are entitled have been provided.

We recommend the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training work with states to reconcile remaining balances that factor in: (a) the actual EURGENO relief provided (or, in some cases, that still must be provided) to reimbursing employers and (b) excess EURGENO relief provided due to the impact of other unemployment insurance or CARES Act provisions or fraud.

We recommend the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training determine the proper disposition of excess funds and take necessary actions, including recovery of questioned costs.

The assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer improve vulnerability management processes to ensure system changes occur within organization timelines.

The VA medical center director ensure that hot and cold aisles in computer rooms, and electric and data cables are installed in accordance with VA standards.

The VA medical center director validate that appropriate physical and environmental security measures are implemented and functioning as intended.

Assess the air-monitoring network around ports and in near-port communities and create a plan to enhance the air-monitoring network where any gaps are identified.

Set quantifiable performance measures for the Ports Initiative, including a plan for identifying the measures' baselines.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency refund to the Federal Government $14,960,673 (Federal share) for claims for single-source physician-administered drugs that were ineligible for Federal reimbursement.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency refund to the Federal Government $43,981 (Federal share) for claims for top-20 multiple-source physician-administered drugs that were ineligible for Federal reimbursement.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency work with CMS to determine and refund the unallowable portion of $290,455 (Federal share) for other claims for multiple-source physician-administered drugs that may have been ineligible for Federal reimbursement and consider invoicing drug manufacturers for rebates for those drug claims that CMS determines are allowable.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency complete the process for rebating pharmacy drugs totaling $6,568 ($4,719 Federal share) for single-source and $219,220 ($157,395 Federal share) for multiple-source drugs that it had not previously collected a rebate on or refund the Federal share.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency work with CMS to determine and refund the unallowable portion of Federal reimbursement for physician-administered drugs that were not invoiced for rebates after December 31, 2019.

We recommend that the Alabama Medicaid Agency strengthen its internal controls to ensure that all pharmacy and physician-administered drugs eligible for rebates are invoiced.

Develop and implement procedures to ensure that travelers have complied with all pre-travel training requirements.

Develop and implement procedures to ensure that travel vouchers are submitted within five business days upon return from travel.

Develop and implement training that ensures all staff and approving officials are aware of their roles, responsibilities, and requirements for the travel process.

Develop and implement a process to communicate travel policy and requirement updates to staff in a periodic manner.

Cross-reference the 1,185 non-citizens’ records with multiple Social Security Numbers (SSN).

Implement a control to ensure employees follow policy when they clear alerts that result in improper assignment of SSNs.

Work with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of State (State) to update the Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) to include a quality review program that ensures accurate data are provided. Additionally, the MOUs should include training of DHS and State employees, when needed.