The Utah Office of the Inspector General (UOIG) submitted its 2020 Annual Report to the Governor, Speaker of the House, Senate President and to the Executive Appropriations Committee. This is the tenth fiscal year that the UOIG has conducted oversight operations of the Medicaid program. For 2020, 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 2020, the Office collected a total of $9,565,485 through all three methods of recovery. This recovery amount was above the Inspector General’s forecast of $3-5 million during an average year. The $3-5 million recovery is the average recovery amount for States of similar size and Medicaid covered population. UOIG saved the state an additional $21 million in cost avoidance attributable to the actions taken by UOIG, including recommendations to the Single State Agency that cause positive change in the program. The full UOIG 2020 Annual Report is available on the Office’s website and by clicking on the following link