Following a court order, White House budget director Shaun Donovan submitted a previously undisclosed letter this week to the Center for Public Integrity, that called on HHS to use a "more aggressive strategy" to reduce improper payments by Medicare and Medicaid to physicians, hospitals and insurers.
Mr. Donovan stated in the Feb. 26 letter addressed to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell that while progress has been made, more can be done to reduce the levels of improper payments that the government is currently seeing.
A copy of Mr. Donovan's letter was released to the Center for Public Integrity through a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, according to a report published by NPR.
In the letter, Mr. Donovan noted that HHS reported that improper payments in the Medicare fee-for-service program increased by 2.62 percentage points in fiscal year 2014 compared to fiscal year 2013.
Mr. Donovan, director of the Office of Management and Budget, went on to say, "We must continue to explore new and innovative ways to address the problem and continue to attack this challenge with every tool at our disposal."
He directs HHS to "provide a comprehensive corrective action plan, which describes root causes and establishes critical path milestones to meet improper payment reduction targets," and to "develop plans to provide reasonable assurance that internal controls over improper payments are in place and are working."
In addition, Mr. Donovan said HHS should consider engaging its inspector general "to develop a Cooperative Audit Resolution and Oversight Initiative to obtain independent feedback and foster continuous improvement in program integrity and to develop interim measures to gauge progress."
According to NPR, it is unclear whether health officials have yet completed the tasks of developing a "comprehensive corrective action plan," and developing a plan to improve the integrity of the Affordable Care Act insurance programs.
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