Finding Text
Sliding Fee Discount - Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Award Name: Community Health Centers. Program Year: January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024. Assistance Listing Number: 93.244/93.527. Repeat Finding: This is not a repeat finding. Criteria: The health center must prepare and apply a sliding fee discount schedule so that the amounts owed for health center services by eligible patients are adjusted (discounted) based on the patient's ability to pay. Condition: During compliance testing, it was identified that the sliding fee discount was not accurately applied to some patients. Context: Some patients did not receive the proper discount based on the approved sliding fee schedule. Cause: The billing system utilized by Health Access Network Inc. does not properly or consistently apply the sliding fee discount to some patients, therefore, requiring the Health Access Network, Inc. billing team to review and manually adjust patient bills. Effect: As a result of the condition, there were multiple instances where patients received incorrect medical bills. Recommendation: We recommend that management enhance control procedures to ensure that a review is performed prior to sending patient bills. View of Responsible Parities: The Organization will implement a process to ensure all medical bills will be reviewed so that they contain the correct sliding fee discounts before being sent to the patient.