Michigan Disbursed Only Part of Its Civil Money Penalty Collections, Limiting Resources To Protect or Improve Care for Nursing Facility Residents

Michigan expended almost two-thirds of the $3.6 million in civil monetary penalty (CMP) collections during our audit period, reimbursing organizations $2.3 million for activities that protected or improved the quality of care for nursing facility residents. However, it did not fully use available CMP collections to support nursing facility residents.

Michigan distributed the CMP funds for a variety of allowable activities, including support for long-term-care ombudsman services, services to skilled nursing facility residents, and development and creation of quality assurance performance improvement training materials.

However, Michigan did not receive a sufficient number of applications to support the expenditure of funds on hand, and many of the applications addressed activities already covered under the Medicaid program. Additionally, Michigan was unable to increase awareness of funds availability and attract new applications. As a result, residents and facilities were potentially underserved because of the limited number of services that were approved and supported with CMP collections. Michigan is currently doing a quality improvement review of its system to improve its outreach and marketing of the CMP funds.