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November 27, 2019

TAG’s Mike Nisivoccia to Speak at NEHIA 2019

TAG Inc., The Audit Group, remains dedicated to helping health systems achieve efficiency and savings by specializing in cost control, risk mitigation, and process improvement in the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) space. To do this we partner with organizations to share our 30+ years of healthcare knowledge in the Supply Chain and AP ecosystem. During this year’s NEHIA (New England Healthcare Internal Auditors) annual conference, Mike Nisivoccia, Director, Business Development at TAG, will speak about decreasing financial risk in the P2P process. The presentation will also address the areas where IDNs face the largest risks, how to identify and quantify them, and […]

October 25, 2019

Vendor Master Cleanse - TAG Inc - The Audit Group

How to Perform a Vendor Master Cleanse in Your Health System

We recently published a blog discussing the impact of outdated and incomplete vendor master files. Your vendor master reduces the risk of fraud and payment errors for health systems. Now we walk you through the laborious steps involved in cleaning up, validating, and maintaining your vendor master. STEP 1: Inspect the Current Vendor Master File Inspecting and assessing your current data is the most time-consuming part of a vendor data cleanse. Begin by identifying and collecting all of your relevant documentation, vendor files, and data sources. Once all the necessary information is collected, import to your preferred data management platform […]

September 24, 2019

PREVENT OVERPAYMENTS UNDER THE FALSE CLAIMS ACT- TAG Inc - The Audit Group

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: Prevent Overpayments under the False Claims Act

In today’s healthcare landscape, the government funds over two-thirds of all provider costs, totaling over $3.5 trillion annually. Generally, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) manages the payment of these claims. In an effort to maintain integrity in the current healthcare system, providers are responsible for determining whether the submitted claims are paid correctly. If an overpayment is made, the provider must report and return the funds within 60 days of discovery. Overpayments can occur from duplicated claim submissions, payment for non-covered or excess services, payment to the incorrect individual, or any other misapplication of government funds. 31 […]

September 10, 2019

Perform Master Cleanse - TAG Inc - The Audit Group

Five Reasons to Perform a Vendor Master Cleanse

On average, health systems work with over 27,500 vendors at a given time with seven percent of those vendors changing their name, affiliation, or standing on an annual basis. With such a large number and variability of vendors, managing vendor data can quickly become cumbersome for an organization’s Accounts Payable (AP) department creating exposure to payment errors, fraudulent charges, and risk of noncompliance. To minimize these risks, AP departments or the parties responsible for the vendor master must keep their master file current and free of errors by performing a vendor master cleanse and maintain the file on a quarterly […]

June 19, 2019

TAG Inc. to Present at the 2019 AHIA Annual Conference

TAG Inc., The Audit Group, remains dedicated to helping health systems perform at their best by specializing in cost control, risk mitigation, and process improvement in the Procure-to-Pay space. Part of this effort means educating the industry on best practices and providing information to healthcare systems that enables them to make proactive improvements on their own. As part of this effort, TAG experts are participating in three presentations during this year’s AHIA Annual Conference, September 15-18, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. This marks AHIA’s (The Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors) 38th Conference, which is held each year to provide a knowledge […]

June 4, 2019

Duplicate Payment Prevention - TAG Inc - The Audit Group

Top 5 Ways to Protect Against Duplicate Payments

Duplicate payments have been among one of the leading sources of leaking resources in healthcare systems for decades. Health systems in the United States lose over $500 million to duplicate payments annually. That’s right, duplicate payments are a half-billion-dollar per year mistake. Imagine what your healthcare organization could do if they saved those funds each year – update facilities, offer new services, treat more patients, upgrade to the latest technologies, or hire more resources. It’s time for your organization to take a more proactive approach to mitigate the risks associated with “dupes” and save resources that directly affect your patient’s […]

October 15, 2018

Six Tips for Hospitals to Reduce Duplicate Payments

Duplicate payments are a large issue in most hospital and healthcare systems. As a category duplicate payments make up the third-largest area in TAG’s hospital AP recovery audits. Often “dupe” payments occur through data entry mistakes, or human error. In one example, an invoice number was entered incorrectly, causing a $187,607 duplicate payment when a hospital later re-entered the invoice data correctly and made a second payment. It’s inevitable in manual processes: keying errors will occur. However, these types of errors can be reduced or mitigated by establishing and following standard practices. Six Tips for Hospitals to Reduce Duplicate […]