Auditor was designed for Fiscal Intermediaries to be able to change any item in a cost report. When the auditor applies audit adjustments, a second copy of the cost report is generated. The adjustments are applied to this second copy of the cost report. One of the design objectives of Auditor is to ensure that the original copy of the cost report is not altered in any way.

This is obviously very practical for Medicare auditors. However, providers can also use Auditor. They may want to key the audit adjustments posted by the Medicare auditor to see that they were done correctly. Using the Tag and Mark Delete capabilities of the system, the provider can evaluate the impact of individual audit adjustments. The impact of an adjustment is important when you're deciding whether an issue should be challenged.

Providers can also use Auditor as a "what if" tool. Because the original cost report is not changed, you can enter budget scenarios through Auditor to see how those changes affect reimbursement. Again, the Tag and Mark Delete capabilities facilitate the evaluation of adjustments in a variety of combinations.

After you close Auditor, you can view or print the original or adjusted version of any worksheet. However, you can only apply audit adjustments to the adjusted copy of the report.

Customized for Fiscal Intermediaries

When you add your first adjustment, the system usually inserts three boilerplate adjustments. These adjustments are used by some Fiscal Intermediaries to cover those changes in the cost report that occur due to errors in the calculation of the original report or retroactive changes.

Some Fiscal Intermediaries do not want these three adjustments. HFS maintains a list of FIs that do and do not want these three adjustments. The individual auditors do or do not get the adjustments based on the FI number they specify in the Fiscal Intermediary tab of the Options dialog box.

Auditor Tutorials

Click on a link below to use an interactive tutorial of the features in Auditor.

• General Auditor Features
• Changing Dates and Text
• Adding or Deleting Cost Centers
• Deleting Worksheets
• Invalid or Illegal Adjustments
• Edit/Override or Adjust Accumulated Cost
• Tagging Adjustments
• Mark Delete
• Deleting Adjustments