HHS' Office of Inspector General is staring at a budget deficit that will cause the agency to lose 400 staff members, or about 20 percent of its workforce, by the end of 2015, according to a Washington Post report.
Officials said the agency is operating with significantly reduced resources due to the expiration of a $30 million-per-year appropriation from the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the end of stimulus funding and other budget cuts, according to the report.
The OIG hit its workforce peak last year with 1,800 staff members, but it has been in a hiring freeze since February 2012. Some OIG officials say their resources are already stretched thin. An agency official recently said the agency did not investigate 1,200 reports of Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse over the past year due to a lack of resources.
The OIG is also delaying or canceling a number of projects that were included in its 2013 work plan. Among those projects being halted are an unspecified number of investigations into poor quality care in hospitals due "significantly reduced" travel budgets and the cost of paying experts to review medical files, according to the report.
The OIG said the delay could result in a "potentially high-risk hospital not being reviewed" and "potentially erroneous claims not being reviewed," according to the report.
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