A pandemic program that distributed funds for uninsured patients’ COVID-19 testing and treatment made nearly $784 million in improper payments to healthcare providers, money the government should begin recouping from the industry, a federal watchdog reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed a subset of the almost $4.2 billion paid out by HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) through the COVID-19 Uninsured Program (UIP) in 2020, which covered testing and treatment for 19.2 million patients.
From its subset sample, OIG estimated that nearly a fifth of the money HRSA paid for about 3.7 million patients was improper due to those patients either having health insurance coverage, receiving services that were not related to COVID-19 or never receiving the services at all, according to a recently published audit, Fierce Healthcare reports. Read more.
