Oklahoma Made Incorrect Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Payments to Hospitals

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority (State agency) did not always pay electronic health record (EHR) incentive program payments to eligible hospitals in accordance with Federal and State requirements for program years 2011 and 2012. Specifically, the State agency overpaid seven hospitals a total of $1.1 million and underpaid four hospitals a total of $402,000, for a net overpayment of $680,000.

We recommended that the State agency (1) refund to the Federal Government $680,000 in net overpayment and adjust 3 hospitals' remaining incentive payments to account for the incorrect calculations, (2) review all numbers provided in calculators for the hospitals not included in the 25 we reviewed to determine whether payment adjustments are needed and refund any overpayments identified, and (3) educate hospitals to ensure that they follow Federal and State requirements for calculating their incentive payments.