Affordable Care Act Contains New Tools to combat Health Fraud
Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice today have put forward new tools in the Affordable Care Act in order to help fight fraud, strengthen consumer rights and protect taxpayer's money.
Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder believe that these tools will enhance the ability to prevent fraud by making it harder to provide false claims, they will make it easier to catch those who try to cheat consumers and will make sure that they face harsh consequences.
As well as strengthening law enforcement capabilities, the new law will also put a bigger emphasis on fraud prevention and programme integrity.
The Affordable Care Act allows organizations like Medicare and Medicaid to fight fraud together as well as developing the partnership with the private sector who can help fight fraud and protect consumers.
It will build on new strategies to fight fraud, such as Project HEAT, the joint operation between the Department of Justice, CMS and the HHS Office of Inspector General that contains unleashed special strike forces in six states to target health care fraud hot spots like South Florida, New York, Texas, California, Louisiana and Michigan.
In addition, expanded law enforcement efforts will be supported by the CPI at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which will utilise state-of-the-art methods to implement provisions of the Affordable Care Act that detect fraud and prevent improper payments.
Attorney General Holder has stated that as long as health care fraud is allowed to continue without any consequences, the US health care system will be prone to attacks and these kind of crimes harm government agencies and programs, insurers and health care providers, and individual patients. Therefore it is imperative that the Affordable Care Act provides tools to stop health care fraud now.
In fiscal year 2009, anti-fraud efforts resulted in $2.51 billion being deposited to the Medicare Trust Fund, a $569 million, or 29 percent, increase over FY 2008. In addition, over $441 million in federal Medicaid money was returned to the Treasury, a 28 percent increase from FY 2008.