Department of Health and Human Services

Office of Inspector General -- AUDIT

"Review of Medicare Credit Balances at Selected Hospitals in California," (A-09-92-00050)

February 5, 1993

Complete Text of Report is available in PDF format (1.13 MB). Copies can also be obtained by contacting the Office of Public Affairs at 202-619-1343.

This final audit report presents the results of our review of Medicare credit balances at 8 randomly selected hospitals of 113 hospitals for whom Blue Cross of California (Blue Cross) served as the fiscal intermediary. Our review showed that these 8 hospitals received $1,000,074 in Medicare overpayments which should have been refunded to the intermediary. Projecting the results of our review to the 113 hospitals, we estimated that the larger hospitals serviced by Blue Cross received and retained about $18.8 million in Medicare overpayments.