States reported over seventeen billion in DSH payments and just over fourteen billion in non-DSH supplemental payments during fiscal year 2010, but state reporting of non-DSH supplemental payments separately from regular payments was incomplete, so the exact amount of non-DSH supplemental payments is unknown. There were no formal recommendations made in this report but there was an observation made that ongoing federal efforts to improve the completeness of reporting of Medicaid supplemental payments is important for effective oversight and to better understand their role in financing Medicaid services.
The overt goal of this report was for the GOA to provide information on the transparency of supplemental Medicaid payments that are made by states. They accomplished this goal in the fact that they could not truly determine the amount of the total Medicaid payments made by the states since state reporting of non-DSH supplemental payments separately...
The methods that were used to do this report were appropriate but the data that was wanted was simply not there.
The GOA should have set down specific recommendations in regards to the reporting of Medicaid payments made by the state. In today's economic crisis it is important for all governmental agencies to be held accountable and the only way that this can be accomplished is for good, accurate records to be kept. The only way to curb the spending that takes place in the government today it is very important that spending be as transparent as possible. In order for this to take place agencies must keep accurate records that can be accessed at a time by anyone who wants to know how money is being spent and on what.
References
Medicaid - States Reported Billions More in Supplemental Payments in Recent Years. (2012).
Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov./assets/600/592785.pdf
