Audit of the Board of Registration of Hearing Instrument Specialists Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Board of Registration of Hearing Instrument Specialists

Overview

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of the Board of Registration of Hearing Instrument Specialists (BRHIS) for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019.

We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Below is a list of our audit objectives, indicating each question we intended our audit to answer; the conclusion we reached regarding each objective; and, if applicable, where each objective is discussed in the audit findings.

Objective	Conclusion
Have all members of BRHIS complied with Section 20(h) of Chapter 30 of the General Laws (the Open Meeting Law), and have they completed the mandatory online ethics training, as required by Chapter 268(a) of the General Laws?	Yes
Does BRHIS meet quarterly to ensure the granting of licenses in accordance with Section 197(f) of Chapter 112, and Section 93 of Chapter 13, of the General Laws?	Partially; see Finding 1

 

To achieve our objectives, we gained an understanding of internal controls that we determined to be relevant to our audit objectives by reviewing BRHIS’s internal control plan, policies, and procedures and conducting interviews with key personnel.

In addition, we performed the procedures described below.

• For the objective related to the Open Meeting Law, testing consisted of verification that board members received Open Meeting Law materials and that each member successfully completed online ethics training. Additionally, for each board meeting conducted during the audit period, we verified that the meeting was properly posted, an agenda was provided to members, and board minutes were posted on the BRHIS website. 
• We interviewed BRHIS’s executive director and the Division of Professional Licensure’s deputy commissioner of boards to obtain an understanding of how the process of granting a license operated, from receipt of an application to issuance of a license.
• We obtained all the BRHIS meeting minutes for our audit period to ensure compliance with Section 93 of Chapter 13 of the General Laws, which required BRHIS to meet quarterly.
• We reviewed the two board meetings held by BRHIS during the audit period to determine whether there were disciplinary cases sent to BRHIS and not acted on.
• We conducted a review of all 31 new licenses that were approved during our audit period to obtain reasonable assurance that BRHIS granted new licenses in accordance with Section 197(f) of Chapter 112 of the General Laws and Section 3 of Title 265 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations. We obtained hardcopy license applications and verified that license applications were timestamped, properly completed, and signed by BRHIS personnel and that the licenses granted matched the applications.

To ensure that the population of licenses was reliable, we reviewed a spreadsheet of individuals who had been issued licenses during the audit period, supplied by BRHIS, for duplicates, hidden rows, and columns and verified that there were no formulas in any of the cells. We also traced a sample of 5 of the 31 licenses issued to the original source documents and verified the accuracy of the names, dates, and license numbers. We conclude that the information is sufficiently reliable for use based on the work performed.

Date published:	April 17, 2020