A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Our work to this point has identified several promising practices that could help to reduce the risk of fraud within the FECA program. The promising practices link back to fraud-prevention concepts contained in GAO’s Fraud Prevention Framework and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, and include agencies’ use of full-time staff dedicated to the FECA program, periodic reviews of claimants’ continued eligibility, data analysis for potential fraud indicators, and effective use of investigative resources. These promising practices have already resulted in successful investigations and prosecutions of FECA-related fraud at some agencies, and could help to further enhance the program’s fraud-prevention controls. However, our preliminary work has also identified several potential vulnerabilities in the program’s design and controls that could increase the risk for fraud. Specifically, we found that limited access to necessary data is potentially reducing agencies’ ability to effectively monitor claims and wage-loss information. In addition, agencies’ reliance on self-reported data related to wages and dependent status, lack of a physician selected by the government throughout the process, and difficulties associated with successful investigations and prosecutions all potentially reduce the program’s ability to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2004, DHS’s use of its CBRN risk assessments to inform its CBRN response plans has varied, from directly influencing information in the plans to not being used at all. DHS guidance states that response planning and resource decisions should be informed by risk information. GAO’s analysis showed that DHS used its CBRN risk assessments to directly inform 2 of 12 CBRN response plans GAO identified because planners considered the risk assessments to be more accurate than earlier DHS planning assumptions. For another 7 of the 12 plans, DHS officials said that the assessments indirectly informed the plans by providing background information prior to plan development. However, GAO could not independently verify this because DHS officials could not document how the risk assessments influenced the information contained in the plans. GAO’s analysis found general consistency between the risk assessments and the plans. For the remaining 3 plans, DHS officials did not use the risk assessments to inform the plans; for 2 of the 3 plans DHS officials told GAO they were not aware of the assessments. DHS officials also noted that there was no departmental guidance …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2010, DOD activities for the treatment and research of PH and TBI received more than $2.7 billion. In fiscal year 2007, funding for these activities totaled $900 million; in fiscal year 2008, it was $573.8 million; in fiscal year 2009, $395 million; and in fiscal year 2010, $838.6 million. GAO found, however, that the reports DOD provided to Congress on these activities did not include expenditures, as required by law, and that the obligations data they contained were unreliable. Governmentwide policies call for agencies to have effective internal controls to assure accurate reporting of obligations and expenditures. However, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has not developed quality control mechanisms to help ensure that data on PH and TBI activities are complete and accurate. Further, although DOD listed patient care among reported costs, it did not specify what those costs included, making it difficult for decisionmakers and Congress to fully understand the costs."