Fraud By The Numbers

Fraud By The Numbers Series

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 17

    Healthcare and defense spending rank number 1 and 2 in the federal budget every year. It is not surprising that they would similarly take top-billing in fraud recoveries. As described on September 1, DOJ issues an annual report detailing statistics on its FCA recoveries. DOJ’s report breaks recoveries into three groups: “Health and Human Services,” Department…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 16

    The federal government awarded almost $811 billion in grants in FY2021. That is up from almost $727 billion in 2020 and $528 billion in 2019 a 53% increase in three years. The increase in awards over the past few years can be attributed to COVID-related priorities. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 15

    The United States’ whistleblower programs are a model for other countries. American exceptionalism generally may be a matter for debate, but not when it comes to empowering, protecting and rewarding whistleblowers – that’s one area in which the good ol’ US of A can absolutely claim moral leadership. That leadership shows in the way US…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 14

    Last year we described the immense job facing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. agency charged with regulating financial markets. The SEC’s staff of 4,459 people is responsible for overseeing nearly every part of the United States’ $110 trillion capital markets. That’s about $24.7 billion per person—more than the entire value of Rupert…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 13

    Twenty-eight million Americans now rely on “Medicare Advantage” (MA) plans, also known as “Part C” for their health insurance benefits. These plans have a special structure, which can improve service and provide savings, but unfortunately also provide new ways for companies to cheat the government. MA plans offer the same “traditional” Medicare benefits to beneficiaries…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 12

    In November 2009, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (“FFETF”) was established to address a financial crisis to which mortgage fraud contributed. The following year, FFETF, together with DOJ and the FBI, announced its first enforcement action: Operation Stolen Dreams. This enforcement action was an “aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort” to target financial fraud, prosecute…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 11

    In FY 2021, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) budget was $703.7 billion.   This is more money in absolute terms than any other Country spends on Defense.  It is also more than any other NATO country spends per person on defense at $2,186 per American. Therefore, every American has a stake in ensuring that money…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 10

    The federal and state False Claims Acts empower whistleblowers to fight fraud against the government. But fraud targets private insurers too, and every American pays for the high cost of this fraud through higher insurance premiums every day. Private insurance fraud costs the public over $100 billion per year and takes an estimated $1,400 per…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 9

    The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic increase in the use of telehealth services, and this higher usage is likely to continue in the future.   In 2019, before the pandemic, 840,000 Medicare telehealth services were received by 910,000 unique Medicare telemedicine beneficiaries. From March 2020 to February 28, 2021:  52.7 million Medicare telehealth services were…

  • Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 8

    Over the next few days, we will highlight the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has added another layer to existing healthcare fraud. Last year, we put into perspective some of the largest sources of government funding, which include, among other government-sponsored healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Further, we discussed the projected growth of Medicare…