The OIG has issued a report entitled “Medicare Continues To Pay Twice for Nonphysician Outpatient Services Provided Shortly Before or During an Inpatient Stay.” The OIG estimates that Medicare contractors made approximately $6.4 million in overpayments to hospital outpatient providers in 2008 and 2009 for services provided to beneficiaries within 3 days prior to or during an inpatient admission. According to the OIG, these overpayments occurred because provider controls failed to prevent or detect incorrect billing, providers were unaware that beneficiaries were inpatients at other facilities, or providers were unaware of or did not understand Medicare requirements. The OIG also identified problems with Common Working File (CWF) designed to detect incorrect payments, CMS’s process for informing Medicare contractors of CWF alerts, contractor overrides of claims edits, and contractor failure to recover overpayments. The OIG made a series of recommendations, including recovery of overpayments, improved communications between CMS and contractors, and improvements to claims edits.