by Ben Vernia | March 16th, 2011
When the OIG-HHS performs a review of the agency’s or its contractors’ and providers’ operations, it typically issues a report that includes one or more recommendations. The OIG gives the agency its recommendations, and HHS responds in writing whether it concurs or disagrees. At the end of each year, some of the OIG’s recommendations remain unimplemented – whether because HHS disagreed with them in the first place, or because the agency has not yet put them into effect.
The OIG has just released its annual, lengthy Compendium of Unimplemented Recommendations. Some recommendations have large estimated savings – such as $340 billion for “Modify Policy To Reduce or Eliminate Medicare Payments for Hospital Bad Debts.” Other program changes’ savings are to be determined, or are offered for nonmonetary reasons.
Interestingly, this year’s book offers little definite savings in Medicare Part D (the prescription drug benefit), which suggests that the OIG-HHS and the agency are still trying to come to terms with the massive program’s costs and fraud vulnerabilities.
The Compendium should be required reading for anyone serious about “bending the curve” of rising federal health care costs.
