Some Selected Health Centers Received Duplicate Reimbursement From HRSA For COVID-19 Testing Services

Why OIG Did This Audit

• Congress appropriated $8.2 billion for COVID-19 supplemental grant funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Health Center Program from 2020 through 2022.
• Separately, during the same period, HRSA reimbursed providers more than $24.5 billion in COVID-19 Uninsured Program (UIP) funds for providing COVID-19 testing and treatment services to uninsured individuals.
• Prior OIG audit work identified that some health centers charged costs for processing COVID-19 tests to their COVID-19 supplemental grant funding and also submitted claims and received reimbursement for the same services from the UIP.

What OIG Found

• Twelve of 106 sampled health centers charged $313,270 in laboratory costs for processing COVID-19 tests to their COVID-19 supplemental grants, submitted claims for the same services to the UIP, and received reimbursements from the UIP for these services.
• On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that health centers in our sample frame claimed $673,962 in COVID-19 supplemental grant funds that were also reimbursed by the UIP for the same services.

What OIG Recommends

We made two recommendations to HRSA, including that it require the 12 health centers to refund $313,270 to the Federal Government. The full recommendations are in the report. HRSA concurred with both recommendations.