2019 Annual Report

The Utah Office of the Inspector General (UOIG) submitted its 2019 Annual Report to the Governor, Speaker of the House, Senate President and to the Executive Appropriations Committee. This is the ninth fiscal year that the UOIG has conducted oversight operations of the Medicaid program. For 2019, the Office recovers funds through three methods: cash collection, OIG directed rebilling of claims and credit adjustments. Recovery of improperly paid Medicaid funds serves purposes beyond simply bringing funds back into the program. The Office considers recovery of funds a “sentinel event” that many times changes a provider’s future billing practices. In that sense, recovery of funds acts as an educational tool with a correlating cost avoidance amount. During SFY 2019, the Office collected a total of $4,653,957.21 through all three methods of recovery. This recovery amount is consistent with the Inspector General’s forecast of $3-5 million during an average year and consistent with recoveries achieved by States of similar size and Medicaid covered population. An additional $18 million was protected from inappropriate expenditure through a concept known as “Cost Avoidance.” These Cost Avoidance and Collections measures resulted in a combined return on taxpayer investment of 760.41% or of every $1 spent $7.60 was saved. The full UOIG 2019 Annual Report is available on the Office’s website and by clicking on the following link. For more information and media inquiries, please contact UOIG at (801) 538-6532.