An enduring mantra from those running for office is “I will cut waste and fraud” to reduce the deficit.  Then once elected, finding the waste and fraud to eliminate seems to become elusive.

 So, as a taxpayer, I welcome this report: “The government says it recovered $2.5 billion in overpayments for the Medicare trust fund last year as the Obama administration focused attention on fraud enforcement efforts in the health care industry.”   Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/26du6l2

 A key ingredient is, of course, a top down focus with increased resources and stronger regulations, evidenced by this statement  from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “We’re going to attack fraud at every stage of the process”.

 Under the Affordable Care Act, some examples of the potential increased scrutiny include fingerprinting, site visits and criminal background checks of providers before they begin billing Medicare and Medicaid.

 Naturally, the software systems utilized by the Medicaid Fraud Control Units across the country must be up to the challenge of tracking and enforcing the new procedures plus provide financial capabilities to calculate recoverable investigative costs and report all fraud monies returned to the trust fund as a basis for program effectiveness. 

 The enforcement and tracking is done at both the federal and state level.  For example, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud & Abuse Control division just implemented a new software system to ensure the financial integrity of the Kentucky Medical Assistance Program. 

OK.  Now where else can we cut spending without slashing needed programs?