By January 15, 2008, the department shall report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over health and human services matters on the department's findings concerning the feasibility of meeting the goals set forth in this subsection. If the department finds that these goals cannot be met, the department shall further report on the period of time within which audits can regularly be completed using existing resources and the estimated additional resources required to achieve the goal of issuing all audit or examination reports within 12 months.

2. Training and technical assistance for providers. The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Audit for MaineCare and Social Services shall review, in consultation with representatives of mental health, mental retardation, substance abuse and long-term care providers, its existing programs of training for providers to determine whether those programs are sufficient to provide complete and current information, on an ongoing basis, regarding the process of auditing cost reports and agreement settlements and the substantive standards and interpretations to be applied in conducting such audits. The office shall identify, with reasonable frequency, the programmatic changes needed to ensure that sufficient training is available to all categories of care providers and to independent public accountants providing services to such providers and that a system is in place to make available to providers, on request, knowledgeable members of its staff to provide such technical assistance as providers may require in order to achieve compliance with the standards applied by the office. By January 15, 2008, the department shall report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over health and human services matters on its findings and on the dates by which the necessary programmatic changes will be implemented.

3. Consistency in cost reimbursement. The Department of Health and Human Services shall review its rules governing cost reimbursement of health care providers to identify the substantial inconsistencies among those rules in the definitions of "ordinary," "necessary" and "reasonable" costs that are allowable and the criteria concerning and the limitations on reimbursement thereof, including the assignment of costs to various rate components. The department shall consult with providers and report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over health and human services matters regarding methods and procedures that the department may adopt and follow to ensure that consistency among these rules is