CMS Announces New Tools To Fight Fraud

As part of the Obama Administration's ongoing efforts to prevent and fight fraud in our nation's health care system, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would be acquiring some new state-of-the-art fraud fighting analytic tools to prevent wasteful and fraudulent payments in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Sebelius and Holder made the announcement at the University of Massachusetts (Boston) at the fourth regional health care fraud prevention summit. The Attorney General and the HHS Secretary have crisscrossed the country this year bringing together a wide array of federal, state and local partners, beneficiaries, and providers to discuss innovative ways to eliminate fraud within the U.S. health care system.

As part of the summit, CMS will issue a solicitation for state-of-the-art fraud fighting analytic tools to help the agency predict and prevent potentially wasteful, abusive or fraudulent payments before they occur. These tools will integrate many of the Agency's pilot programs into the National Fraud Prevention Program and complement the work of the joint HHS and Department of Justice Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT).