The Office of Inspector General - OIG - In Brief - continues examination of Medicare credit balances, bad debts - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, Oct, 2002

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) will likely continue to look at credit balances and Medicare bad debts. Two recent OIG reports indicate the agency continues to find justification for audits of providers' handling of credit balances and Medicare beneficiaries' bad debts for deductible and coinsurance amounts.

The IIG also examined credit balances predominantly owed to the Medicaid program, because the agency has an interest in providers' failure to comply with state programs because of the matching funds the Federal government provides. See the credit balances audit report (A-05-01-00069) at http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region5/50100069. htm, and the bad debt report (A-03-01-00022) at http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region3/30100022.htm.