Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Semiannual Report to the Congress, October 2002-March 2003

摘要

For this past six-month period, as has been the case historically, the work of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Department of Health and Human Services, has resulted in substantial savings and significant program improvements. A keystone of our work continues to be targeting potential financial vulnerabilities in the federal health care programs. Among many examples are our findings regarding the payment variations between ambulatory surgical centers and hospital outpatient departments. In just this area alone, we found that because of this payment variation, Medicare is overpaying for these services by more than $1 billion. Further substantial savings have been achieved through our work in the prescription drug industry. Recent settlements include one with a national pharmaceutical manufacturer who agreed to pay $49 million to resolve allegations of avoiding fully paying the rebates owed to the federal and state governments under the national Medicaid drug rebate program for a particular drug. More work is under way to determine the impact of the drug rebate program on the price of prescription drugs.