Medicare Improperly Paid Suppliers an Estimated $92.5 Million for Inhalation Drugs

Since 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS's) Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) program has identified nebulizers and related drugs (i.e., inhalation drugs) among the top 20 supplies with the highest improper Medicare payments. Prior OIG reviews (for calendar years (CYs) 2014 and 2015) found that the top two suppliers of inhalation drugs complied or generally complied with Medicare requirements. However, our review of a third supplier (for CYs 2015 and 2016) found similar billing issues to those identified by the CERT program. These three suppliers received 56 percent of total Medicare payments for inhalation drugs during CY 2017 (audit period). We conducted this nation-wide review to determine whether the issues identified by the CERT program were primarily caused by suppliers that received the remaining 44 percent of payments, which we had not previously reviewed.