(a) The State must develop a separate corrective action plan for Medicaid and CHIP for each improper payment rate measurement, designed to reduce improper payments in each program based on its analysis of the improper payment causes in the FFS, managed care, and eligibility components.

(1) The corrective action plan must address all errors that are included in the State improper payment rate defined at §431.960(f)(1) and all deficiencies.

(2) For eligibility, the corrective action plan must include an evaluation of whether actions the State takes to reduce eligibility errors will also avoid increases in improper denials.

(b) In developing a corrective action plan, the State must take the following actions:

(1) Error analysis. The State must conduct analysis such as reviewing causes, characteristics, and frequency of errors that are associated with improper payments. The State must review the findings of the analysis to determine specific programmatic causes to which errors are attributed (for example, provider lack of understanding of the requirement to provide documentation), if any, and to identify root improper payment causes.

(2) Corrective action planning. The State must determine the corrective actions to be implemented that address the root improper payment causes and prevent that same improper payment from occurring again.

(3) Implementation and monitoring.

(i) The State must develop an implementation schedule for each corrective action and implement those actions in accordance with the schedule.

(ii) The implementation schedule must identify all of the following for each action:

(A) The specific corrective action.

(B) Status.

(C) Scheduled or actual implementation date.

(D) Key personnel responsible for each activity.

(E) A monitoring plan for monitoring the effectiveness of the action.

(4) Evaluation. The State must submit an evaluation of the corrective action plan from the previous measurement. The State must evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective action(s) by assessing all of the following:

(i) Improvements in operations.

(ii) Efficiencies.

(iii) Number of errors.

(iv) Improper payments.

(v) Ability to meet the PERM improper payment rate targets assigned by CMS.

(c) The State must submit to CMS and implement the corrective action plan for the fiscal year it was reviewed no later than 90 calendar days after the date on which the State's Medicaid or CHIP improper payment rates are posted on the CMS contractor's Web site.

(d) The State must provide updates on corrective action plan implementation progress annually and upon request by CMS.

(e) In addition to paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section, each State that has an eligibility improper payment rates over the allowable threshold of 3 percent for consecutive PERM years, must submit updates on the status of corrective action implementation to CMS every other month. Status updates must include, but are not limited to the following:

(1) Details on any setbacks along with an alternate corrective action or workaround.

(2) Actual examples of how the corrective actions have led to improvements in operations, and explanations for how the improvements will lead to a reduction in the number of errors, as well as the State's next PERM eligibility improper payment rate.

(3) An overall summary on the status of corrective actions, planning, and implementation, which demonstrates how the corrective actions will provide the State with the ability to meet the 3 percent threshold.

[82 FR 31186, July 5, 2017]