Reports

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Business Tax Return Processing Operations

Audit | 9/02/2021

1 - Closed

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should coordinate with the Office of Servicewide Penalties to ensure that the 1,295 taxpayer accounts with potential incorrect ES penalties are reviewed and corrected as necessary.

1 - Closed

2 - Closed

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should evaluate the feasibility to direct additional types of payments from Tax Processing Centers to lockbox sites. This evaluation should also assess the feasibility of directing payments received by field office employees to lockbox sites for processing.

2 - Closed

Department of Health & Human Services OIG

CMS's COVID-19 Data Included Required Information From the Vast Majority of Nursing Homes, but CMS Could Take Actions To Improve Completeness and Accuracy of the Data

The United States currently faces a nationwide public health emergency because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal regulations, effective May 8, 2020, required nursing homes to report COVID-19 information, such as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases among residents, at least weekly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Healthcare Safety Network. Each week, CDC aggregates the reported information and sends the data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for posting to the CMS website. These data are used to assist with national surveillance of...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 9/01/2021

271069 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to develop a process to identify nursing homes that do not report required data for all of the data elements related to COVID-19 cases and deaths among residents and staff and PPE and supplies and request that they submit the required data.

271070 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to revise its quality assurance checks for ratios 1, 3, 5, and 6, which use the number of all beds in the denominator, to ensure that it does not exclude from its COVID-19 data nursing homes' data that should be included.

271071 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to revise its quality assurance checks for ratios 2 and 4, which use the numbers of confirmed cases and admissions among residents and confirmed cases among staff in the denominator, by adding the number of suspected COVID-19 cases to the denominator in both ratios and adjust the ratios' thresholds to reflect the change.

271072 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to identify the nursing homes that reported more total COVID-19 deaths than total deaths from any cause and request that they verify or correct the reported data.

271073 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to contact nursing homes that failed quality assurance checks to verify the accuracy of reported data or to correct inaccurate data.

271074 - Closed

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assess the costs and benefits of implementing the following recommendations and if CMS determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, take action to work with CDC and with State health departments to determine the feasibility of using comparable data elements to collect COVID-19 data and the feasibility of monitoring substantial differences in the data and, if determined feasible, take actions to provide the public with more complete and accurate COVID-19 data for nursing homes.

U.S. Postal Service OIG

U.S. Postal Service Protection Against External Cyberattacks

Our objective was to determine if the Postal Service has an effective security posture to protect its Information Technology (IT) infrastructure from external cyberattacks and prevent unauthorized access to restricted data.

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 8/31/2021

General Services Administration OIG

PBS Did Not Always Follow CDC and Internal Guidance to Limit the Risk of COVID-19 Exposure

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 8/26/2021

Department of Agriculture OIG

COVID-19—Oversight of the Emergency Food Assistance Program-Interim Report

The objective of our ongoing inspection is to evaluate FNS’ oversight of TEFAP—this report provides interim results on whether FNS identified risks related to the safeand efficient distribution of USDA-food assistance to States during the COVID-19pandemic.

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Inspection / Evaluation | 8/25/2021

Department of Agriculture OIG

COVID-19—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Online Purchasing in Response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019

OIG reviewed FNS’ controls over the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot in response to the COVID 19 pandemic.

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Inspection / Evaluation | 8/25/2021

Department of Veterans Affairs OIG

Deficiencies in COVID-19 Screening and Facility Response for a Patient Who Died at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection regarding allegations of incompletely screening for COVID-19 and treatment of a patient with serious mental illness who presented for same-day care at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (facility).The OIG substantiated that facility staff did not complete the patient’s COVID-19 temperature screening.The OIG substantiated that facility staff failed to medically manage the patient with COVID-19 symptoms, sent the patient to the drive-through testing area without medical evaluation, and did not isolate the patient...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Inspection / Evaluation | 8/18/2021

1 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director evaluates the visitor standard operating procedures for patients who require mental or behavioral health support during COVID-19 screening, and takes action as needed.

2 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director ensures that clinical staff screen and manage suspected COVID-19 patients according to Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Integrated Service Network 16 guidelines and Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center policies.

3 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director monitors compliance with the Veterans Health Administration requirement for Mental Health Intensive Case Management staff to identify and accurately document patients’ surrogates.

4 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director strengthens processes to ensure Mental Health Intensive Case Management staff inform patients, families, and other support persons on the procedures for accessing medical and mental health care while navigating the COVID-19 screening and testing process, including visitor policies.

5 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director ensures clinical and non-clinical staff comply with Veterans Health Administration and Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center policies on missing and at-risk patients.

6 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director monitors compliance with Veterans Health Administration policies related to timeliness and reporting of adverse events to the patient safety manager.

7 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director ensures that issue briefs are initiated timely and are comprehensive, accurate, and updated as appropriate.

8 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director ensures leaders complete root cause analyses within 45 days of leaders’ awareness of applicable adverse events.

9 - Closed

The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Director consults with the VA Office of General Counsel regarding the accuracy and content of the institutional disclosure to the subject patient’s family, and takes action as appropriate.

Small Business Administration OIG

The Small Business Administration’s Implementation of Recommended Controls and the Economic Aid Act

SBA implemented or initiated action on all the OIG recommendations to strengthen internal controls related to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The Economic Aid Act continued assistance under the PPP for small businesses financially affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. We found SBA implemented the PPP in accordance with the Economic Aid Act with two exceptions. SBA did not 1) require an assessment of affiliation for faith-based organizations which contradicts its internal control procedures and 2) issue guidance regarding farm credit system institutions to ensure requirements...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Department of Labor OIG

The U.S. Department of Labor Complied with The Payment Integrity Information Act for FY 2020, but Reported Unemployment Insurance Information Did Not Represent Total Program Year Expenses

DOL's reported Unemployment Insurance improper payment rate of 9.17 percent is compliant with Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019, it is not representative of total unemployment expenses for program year 2020. This occurred for the following reasons: (1) DOL excluded CARES Act of 2020 because these unemployment payments were not in existence for more than 12 months, and (2) DOL received direction from Office of Management and Budget to utilize the results from the first three quarters of the program year. This allowed state workforce agencies to suspend work on improper payment sampling...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

National Science Foundation OIG

Performance Audit of the Implementation of OMB COVID-19 Flexibilities – University of Michigan

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 8/02/2021

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Submitting Agency

State/Local Agency

State (State and Local Reports)

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Agency Reviewed

Related Organizations

Management Challenges

Any Recommendations

Any Open Recommendations

Reports

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Business Tax Return Processing Operations

CMS's COVID-19 Data Included Required Information From the Vast Majority of Nursing Homes, but CMS Could Take Actions To Improve Completeness and Accuracy of the Data

U.S. Postal Service Protection Against External Cyberattacks

PBS Did Not Always Follow CDC and Internal Guidance to Limit the Risk of COVID-19 Exposure

COVID-19—Oversight of the Emergency Food Assistance Program-Interim Report

COVID-19—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Online Purchasing in Response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019

Deficiencies in COVID-19 Screening and Facility Response for a Patient Who Died at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas

The Small Business Administration’s Implementation of Recommended Controls and the Economic Aid Act

The U.S. Department of Labor Complied with The Payment Integrity Information Act for FY 2020, but Reported Unemployment Insurance Information Did Not Represent Total Program Year Expenses

Performance Audit of the Implementation of OMB COVID-19 Flexibilities – University of Michigan

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