A certain synchronicity seems to be at work with the release of the latest state audit of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services during Child Abuse Prevention Month. The audit revealed serious deficiencies and errors in the department’s oversight performance, the Journal’s Richard Craver reported last week.
The well-being of children is a big part of the DHHS’s responsibilities. So perhaps the most damning bit of information from the audit was the section that said that the DHHS didn’t properly monitor “that the child abuse directory was checked before a child was placed for adoption. As a result, children could be placed in an unsafe environment.”
The DHHS said it assumed “the check was being performed at the same time another state agency performed the criminal background check.”
If there’s one area where a duplication of efforts and expense could be forgiven, this is it.
When it comes to children in the state’s care, there’s no room for errors.
But more problems were revealed by the audit: Errors were found in samples of more than 119 million payments to Medicaid providers totaling $10 billion, the Journal report-ed. From a sample of 272 claims, 24 percent had errors, often involving a lack of documentation. That resulted in overpayments of $464,942 and questioned costs of $303,169.
That’s a lot of money.
DHHS officials disagreed with some of the audit findings and said that the deficiencies have been noted and either have been corrected or will be corrected this year.
But that’s not all. A DHHS program used to process food-stamp claims and another used to process Medicaid claims had implementation problems in 2013 and 2014, including a major backlog in claim processing that state legislators last year called “unacceptable.” And the audit turned up “numerous deficiencies” in procedures for determining whether Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits were in compliance with federal regulations and whether they were actually reaching the proper participants.
The DHHS also failed to spend $239,675 of the federal funding earmarked for HIV pro-jects and had to return it. That’s money lost to North Carolina residents who could cer-tainly have used it.
The audit also found that overpayments were made to vocational rehabilitation grant pro-grams and inaccurate Medicaid payments to hospitals that serve low-income patients. Out of $2.7 billion, about $12.9 million in overpayments were made.
The department said “there was a misunderstanding about which federal medical assistance percentage to apply.”
There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings at the DHHS.
A financial audit of the DHHS is due Friday. We hope there’s some good news to report.
The state DHHS has been experiencing difficulties for some time now – some adminis-trative, some dealing with the use of resources, and many having to do with money. This is hard-earned tax money. It’s long past time for the DHHS to get its act together.
