Bounty Hunters to Sniff Out Health Care Fraud Under New Plan

Medicare and Medicaid are big. Really big. $342 billion big. And, like a sugary Jolly Ranger placed upon an ant hill, this bigness tends to attract certain unsavory elements (read: fraudsters) that, over time, can cost the government billions upon billions of dollars. Last year alone it is estimated that roughly $54 billion was lost to waste, fraud and abuse.

As the president prepares to push through health care reform like one would pass an egg-sized kidney stone – with an abundance of blood, sweat and tears–he has had to consider the possibility that a bigger health care system could lead to bigger frauds. His answer? Bounty hunters. Specifically, financial bounty hunters, armed not with a pistol but a pencil and dedicated to rooting out fraud in the nation’s public health care system wherever it might try to hide.

Obama, through a presidential memorandum he plans to eventually sign, directs the federal government to intensify its use of “payment recapture audits” a system that lets private companies under government contract go through the books to find evidence of potential fraud and abuse. The auditors will get to keep a share of whatever money they help recoup, thus heavily incentivizing them to look extra hard for strange numbers.