Mineola, NY- Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos issued a follow-up audit of the Nassau Health Care Corporation (NHCC) today that found many of the same problems identified in an audit released in March 2011 continue costing the hospital millions of dollars. The scope of the follow-up audit was from 2010-2012. The repeat findings include billing errors, uncollectable receivables, questionable procurement practices and vendor payments without adequate supporting documentation. The audit also found a lack of management oversight of non-medical employees’ overtime resulting in far more overtime hours than what was shown in the timekeeping system and certain engineering staff running up overtime amounts up to 124% of their regular pay.
“It is shocking that a follow-up audit would find the same poor administrative practices continuing largely unabated two years after the first audit highlighted the problems,” Comptroller George Maragos said. “There was little evidence to substantiate management’s claims of improvements. It is especially troubling that known billing errors continued costing the hospital millions in lost revenues.”
The follow-up audit covering the period 2010-2012 found:
The original audit issued in March 2011 found that $6.5 million of unbilled gross charges had not been billed to insurance providers or patients because of missing patient information and pre-billing errors. The follow-up could not confirm any improvements as there were no reconciliation reports produced to substantiate how unbilled patient accounts were ultimately resolved. In fact, $7.9 million in untimely billing write offs during the two year period 2011 through 2012 were identified.
The prior audit noted that NHCC did not comply with the pre-contract approval process. The files reviewed lacked support that contracts were competitively bid with public notice. The auditors also found that contracts were not always approved before being executed.
Follow-up Review of Nassau Health Care Corporation
Connect with Nassau County Comptroller Maragos Online:
http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/1590/County-Comptrollers-Office