4.7% of hospitals, 24% of providers fail post-payment audits

Nearly 5 percent of hospitals and 24 percent of eligible providers failed post-payment audits, according to the latest Meaningful Use data.

The Department of Health & Human Services has conducted 4,780 post-payment audits, of which 4,601 have been completed. Of these, 1,106 failed to meet Meaningful Use objectives and associated measures and had to return, on average, $16,862.81, according to the analysis.

For eligible hospitals, 29 of the 651 hospitals failed the audits. The proposed amount of returned incentive payment ranged from $280,414 to $3.4 million. In total, overall proposed returned incentives totaled nearly $33 million.

The highest post-payment audit failure rates for eligible providers took place in Montana and Vermont, with the highest failure rate among eligible hospitals having occurred in North Dakota and South Carolina.