Look to OIG audits to steer your internal audit practices

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Note:  The following article synopsis was NOT provided by HCPro. It was created by Find-A-Code/innoviHealth.

Article Overview

This article explains how health care organizations can study publicly available OIG audit reports to strengthen internal audit planning and monitoring. It focuses on broad audit program design topics such as identifying risk areas, selecting a defensible audit sample, using audit tools and methodology, and handling reporting and follow-up within a compliance framework. The piece is aimed at compliance, billing, and coding professionals who support denials management and audit preparation.

Why This Topic Matters

Internal audits are a core compliance activity, and the article shows how external audit reports can help organizations build more targeted, practical audit processes. It is relevant for teams looking to improve audit structure, document risk-based sampling, and coordinate findings with billing and compliance workflows.

Article Sections

  1. Denials management

    An introductory framing of the article’s compliance and audit-management focus. It sets up the broader discussion of audit planning and internal monitoring.

  2. How to identify risk areas

    Discusses general approaches for finding audit risk areas using industry information, prior audit history, and public audit reports. It emphasizes the importance of risk-based planning in audit development.

  3. How to select the audit sample

    Covers high-level considerations for building an internal audit sample, including scope, timing, and proportional coverage of risk areas. The section also addresses the role of statistical methods and counsel oversight.

  4. Narrow down the records

    Describes the process of narrowing an audit universe to records within a chosen date range and risk area. It also references common software-based approaches used to organize sample selection.

  5. Reporting results

    Summarizes how audit findings are shared and resolved within an organization. It includes general follow-up considerations for internal departments and compliance reporting.

What You Will Learn

  • How OIG audit reports can inform internal compliance auditing
  • Ways to identify and prioritize audit risk areas
  • General principles for selecting internal audit samples
  • How audit findings are communicated and followed up
  • Where audit tools and public resources fit into audit planning

Who Should Read This

  • Compliance officers
  • Billing and coding professionals
  • Audit and monitoring staff
  • Revenue cycle teams
  • Practice administrators
  • Health care managers

Codes Discussed

Code Ranges Discussed

  • HCPCS LEVEL II: G0438-G0439

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