Healthcare Fraud Recovery $4.2B for 2012

Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a report today indicating that for every $1 spent on healthcare fraud and abuse recovery, $7.90 has been returned to the treasury over the past three years. With the Obama administration making recovery a top priority, this is the highest level of return in the 16-year history of the program.

Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) was created in 2009 to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and to crack down on individuals and organizations that are bleeding the system. Last year, the Justice Department opened 1,131 new criminal fraud investigations involving as many as 2,148 defendants. Convictions have been achieved on 826 defendants in fraud-related crimes during the year. In the same year, the department opened 885 new civil investigations.

In 2012, CMS began screening all 1.5 million Medicare-enrolled providers through the new Automated Provider Screening system. APS fingers ineligible and potentially fraudulent providers and suppliers prior to enrollment or revalidation. Nearly 150,000 ineligible providers have been eliminated from Medicare’s billing system so far. 

CarePrecise's standard database of healthcare providers includes a field that indicates providers who may still be active, but have been added to the federal List of Excluded Individuals and Entities, tying excluded providers to their NPI numbers.