ImCal working to correct audit findings - KPLC

abaikans.blogspot.com

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - An audit of the Imperial Calcasieu Human Services Authority finds that patients were not being billed in a timely manner, possibly causing the agency setbacks in collecting payments.

ImCal helps those with behavioral health and developmental disabilities in the five-parish area.

The recent Louisiana Legislative Auditors report had three findings regarding Imperial Calcasieu. The first two findings had to do with billing while the third had to do with clearly identifying federal grant information to recipients.

“We always have a goal of not getting any findings when we have an audit, but we know that that’s not the case,” ImCal Executive Director Tanya McGee said. “We’re a very large entity with a budget of almost $14 million with over 100 staff, and we know that we’re not always perfect all the time.”

Barrett Hunter, assistant director of financial audit services with the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office, explains the findings.

“We had where they weren’t billing patients timely for services they performed, and then they weren’t submitting those to the collection agency, which is the office of debt recovery,” Hunter said.

But McGee says the three findings have either already been corrected or have a plan in place.

McGee says they chose not to send people to collections for a few months following the hurricanes.

“People were already in dire straights financially because of COVID, and then all of the devastation,” McGee said. “So, we feel that some of that audit finding too was around the fact that we chose not to send people to collections for a few months.”

When it comes to timely billing, McGee says they are working on correcting the problem.

“Our electronic health record is not the most robust in terms of billing, so we’re actually looking at getting another record so that kind of stuff doesn’t happen again,” McGee said.

Regarding the federal grants, McGee says they did not have all of the information to give to the organizations at first but were able to fix the problem in a timely manner.

“Imperial has to monitor that and has to provide certain information to these sub-recipient organizations, and that’s where the weaknesses were,” Hunter said.

“That was actually a finding that came out across the state in all of our sister districts,” McGee said. “So, when that finding came out, we immediately reached out to the Louisiana Department of Health, and they gave us all of the information that we needed for our auditors.”

McGee says they use these audit findings as a way to grow and improve processes.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditors Office will release another report in two years. They will also look at changes made to correct the findings in this recent report.

Both Hunter and McGee acknowledge that ImCal has been able to correct the audit report findings in the past.

McGee says most of the findings in this recent report are small, and she is confident they will be able to correct the problems and move forward with operations.

“My main concern and my main issue is that we treat the clients that we have to treat and that we’re a good steward of the taxpayer dollar. And that we don’t misappropriate any funds, and we’ve never had any audits regarding or findings regarding any of those things,” McGee said.

For the full audit report CLICK HERE.

For a summary of the audit report CLICK HERE.

Copyright 2021 KPLC. All rights reserved.

Adblock test (Why?)

"correct" - Google News
November 16, 2021 at 11:31AM
https://ift.tt/3FDhQRR

ImCal working to correct audit findings - KPLC
"correct" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3d10rUK
https://ift.tt/35qAk7d

Bagikan Berita Ini