The HHS Office of the Inspector General recently announced it would audit hospitals to see whether they complied with billing requirements related to these codes.
A 2020 audit conducted by the office for severe malnutrition diagnosis codes found that of 200 claims reviewed, only 27 were error-free. The alleged errors in the sample resulted in hospitals receiving $914,128 in overpayments. Based on the sample, the office estimated that hospitals received more than $1 billion in overpayments from coding errors.
