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Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Division 10 Service 415 Program 415 Chapters 05 - 65 North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services

Erroneous Payments 415-55-01 (Added 10/1/20 ML #3588) View Archives

Erroneous Heating Assistance or Emergency Assistance payments may be underpayments or overpayments and may occur for a variety of causes such as fraud, misrepresentation, failure to report changes, fuel supplier, administrative errors, etc. The electronic data processing system has the capability to adjust the co-payment percentages, make supplemental payments, or credit refunds to the household’s case file and fuel supplier file. All reasonable and practical steps must be taken on all errors to prevent further overpayments, waste, or abuse. 1. Underpayments will be reported and adjusted as soon after discovery and verification as possible. 2. Overpayments resulting from either an administrative error or a recipient error are subject to recovery. The error must also be corrected to prevent further overpayments from occurring. 3. Suspected vendor-related overpayments will be refunded to the Department of Human Services immediately after discovery and verification. 4. Overpayment to a vendor or household, due to suspected fraud, will be referred to the county attorney for possible legal action and, if accepted and prosecuted, recovered as prescribed by legal authorities.

See 415-55-10-05, Fraud and 415-55-10-05-05, Suspected Fraud Guidelines for questions regarding determining a suspicion of fraud.