Audits are particularly important for public employee plans, where employers have a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers to ensure a clean plan population.(Photo: Shutterstock)

It was a happy, but not-so happy, moment for benefits advisor Kalli Ortega, managing partner and vice president at Corkill Benefits, when she learned that a couple on one of her employer health plans had been charged for two circumcisions on the invoice for their daughter's birth. She knew then that she was making progress with educating about the need for health care bill auditing, but also the degree to which facility bills were totally out of hand.

As she tells the story, the couple had finally been able to have a child after repeated unsuccessful attempts. When the bill from the hospital arrived, they didn't just blindly pay it. They asked for an itemized bill.

That was the magic moment. Ortega had been advising plan members to dig into the costs that came their way. The couple got the itemized bill, reviewed it–and saw, to their shock, that the hospital was charging them for two circumcisions–for a girl! Then they took the next big step: They contacted Ortega. "Baby boys don't have two circumcisions. But a girl? Really? This is a perfect example of why all facility bills need auditing and benefits advisors need to educate their clients on the value of audits," she says.