The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS OIG) released a compendium of unimplemented changes recommended by previous OIG audits and evaluations.   The report finds that, as of September 30, 2009, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) had yet to implement numerous HHS OIG changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), many of which would reduce government spending.  For Medicare, CMS has yet to implement OIG recommendations to reduce or eliminate Medicare payments for hospitals’ bad debt, or modify payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations.  Taken together, both proposals would save over $2 billion.  For Medicaid, CMS has not adopted OIG’s recommendations to limit enhanced payments, require that Medicaid payments returned by public providers offset federal spending, or implement numerous prescription drug payment changes.  OIG estimates that combined Medicaid savings for the proposals would total over $2 billion.

From the report: The Compendium consolidates significant unimplemented monetary and nonmonetary recommendations addressed to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to provide information to interested parties about outstanding recommendations that, if implemented, have the potential to result in cost savings and improvements to program efficiency and effectiveness. These recommendations resulted from our audits and evaluations that were performed pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended. Our recommendations require one of, or a combination of, three types of actions: legislative, regulatory, or administrative. Some issues involve more than one type of action.

Full report:  Compendium of Unimplemented Office of Inspector General Recommendations (PDF | 1.33 MB)