DOJ and HHS Announce Interagency Effort to Reduce Healthcare Fraud

Tags: DOJ | HHS | Medicare fraud

Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have announced the creation of a new interagency effort, the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team, to combat Medicare fraud, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

The HEAT team will include senior officials from DOJ and HHS and will focus on the prevention of fraud. The team will implement site visits to potential durable medical equipment providers, increase training for healthcare providers on Medicare compliance, improve data sharing between CMS and law enforcement and strengthen program integrity activities to monitor Medicare Parts C and D compliance and enforcement.

Additionally, joint DOJ/HHS Medicare Fraud Strike Force teams, which target Medicare fraud at a local level, will be expanded to Detroit and Houston. The teams are currently active in South Florida and Los Angeles. These teams use a "data-driven" approach to identify unexplainable billing patterns and investigating these providers for possible fraudulent activity, according to the release.

Read the DOJ release on the new DOJ/HHS effort to reduce healthcare fraud.