Reports

President Trump declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to take proactive steps to support the response to COVID-19 through the use of section 1135 waivers. By means of this authority, CMS waived certain requirements in order to expand Medicare telehealth benefits to health care professionals who were previously ineligible, including physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, and others. CMS also amended regulations to allow home health agencies to use telecommunications systems in conjunction with in-person visits. We will evaluate home health services provided by agencies during the COVID-19 public health emergency to determine which types of skilled services were furnished via telehealth, and whether those services were administered and billed in accordance with Medicare requirements. We will report as overpayments any services that were improperly billed. 
 

This review will assess VHA’s response, readiness, implementation, and outcomes with the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines to employees and veterans. 
 

The goal of this report is to highlight and put into context scientific findings that currently exist around school reopening's, detail key policy measures undertaken within the United States and globally, and bring together the impacts that school closures have had on students and parents in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The analysis presented here establishes a baseline of policies that were implemented in the National Capital Region (NCR)1 , aligned with the intent of the policy, and the data sources available to provide context, including population and demographic, mobility, COVID-19 caseload and death, economic, and geographic data.

Economic and health impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have left States facing increases in new applications for health insurance through the Medicaid and ACA Marketplace programs. Responding to the pandemic, including meeting the new enrollment and oversight demands, has taxed State health care systems. This evaluation will assess efforts by the States and CMS to effectively enroll residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in Medicaid and ACA Marketplace plans. By identifying effective practices or any breakdowns in enrollment and oversight systems, this review would help improve the efficiency of State health insurance enrollment processes under both emergency and more typical conditions.

The OIG is conducting a survey of inmates in BOP-managed federal prisons regarding BOP's COVID-19 pandemic response.

The City has established and implemented several disaster management plans – including a Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan. Still, additional considerations in these plans would ensure the City is more prepared for potential future pandemics.

We intended to report on DOH’s contact tracing process, primarily to filter through the varying, confusing, and often conflicting information and to provide a clearer, objective, and up-to-date understanding of the department’s efforts. However, instead of cooperation and assistance, we encountered barriers, delays, and ultimately were denied access to those responsible for leading the department’s contact tracing: the Disease Outbreak Control Division (DOCD) Chief and the Disease Investigation Branch (DIB) Chief, who recently took over that task.

In this report, we specifically discuss DOE’s policies and procedures regarding department employees and students who are confirmed positive for COVID-19. We intended this report to provide clearer, consolidated, and current information about those policies and procedures.

This report was initiated due to state and county level employees reaching out to the Auditor of State’s Office to discuss reporting delays related to Test Iowa. The reporting delays mentioned could have a negative impact on the pandemic response by hindering contact tracing and decision-making at both governmental and individual levels..