WASHINGTON – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be the first federal agency to test a mapping and data analysis tool developed by a White House oversight board to spot irregularities in the flow of economic stimulus funds.
The software tool was developed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB), established to watch over the distribution of billions of dollars in funding set up by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The RATB uses maps, tools and templates developed by geographic information systems vendor ESRI to roll up data from the 50 states to show where and to whom the federal funds have gone. Users can drill down for more information about local spending.
CMS will use the software tool to identify potential fraud and abuse as well as inaccurate payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers, which together accounted for $65 billion in improper payments last year, according to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzsag.
The tool will then become available to all federal agencies to use.
In a June 18 blog post announcing the CMS project, Orzsag said the tool, "gathers enormous quantities of information – in real time – and then analyzes the data and helps connect the dots to identify indicators of possible fraud or error."
The tool will help CMS sort through the thousands of tips it receives about fraud and abuse. The agency will test the it to identify suspicious providers among a list of providers in geographic regions where the agency has indications of fraud.
The results will help to validate providers already identified as high risk and to spot additional high-risk providers whom the agency previously considered legitimate under the current process, Orszag said.
President Obama has also signed an order setting up a "Do Not Pay List," another method with which to reduce incorrect federal payments. The Do Not Pay List will link disparate federal databases into a common source through which agencies can check the status and eligibility of a potential contractor or grantee.
"The technology for this fraud mapping tool and a Do Not Pay List database exist, yet the government was not using it," said Orzsag. "We pay a price in allowing the IT gap between the public and private sectors to persist."
