The new report says that Mr. Price’s travels as health secretary “resulted in waste of federal funds totaling at least $341,000.” Waste was defined as “the extravagant, careless or needless expenditure of government funds.”

Mr. Price paid the government $59,390 for his use of chartered aircraft, but the inspector general said this did not come anywhere near the total cost of the improper travel.

A spokesman for Mr. Price issued a statement on Friday saying that the inspector general had not interviewed the former secretary. Problems cited in the report resulted from “good-faith mistakes” by federal employees who made travel arrangements for Mr. Price, the statement said.

But Heather Flick, the acting assistant secretary for administration at the department, acknowledged that “instances of unnecessary spending occurred.”

The inspector general said Mr. Price had violated federal travel rules on all 12 trips for which he used chartered aircraft from February through September last year. Before taking such trips, officials are supposed to compare the cost of charter flights with the cost of commercial travel, but Mr. Price did not do so, Mr. Levinson said.

“Chartered aircraft should not have been authorized for those trips,” during which officials gave speeches, held meetings and made routine site visits, the report said.

Mr. Price and his aides could have traveled to Seattle on commercial flights, at rates negotiated by the government, for $2,500, which is about 2 percent of what they spent on chartered aircraft, the inspector general said. And for a trip to Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina and Georgia, they could have flown on commercial flights for $6,600, but instead used chartered aircraft at a cost of $87,400, the report said.