President Barack Obama on Wednesday is expected to announce a new effort to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending through increased use of recapture audits, the White House said. The announcement will take place during remarks the president is scheduled to deliver in St. Charles, Mo.
Under the plan, private auditors would be offered financial incentives for finding improper payments. Pilot programs testing for Medicare recovery efforts currently are in place in California, New York and Texas. Over a three-year period, the program recaptured $900 million for taxpayers, according to the White House.
Improper payments include payments to the wrong person or for the wrong amount. According to the White House, improper payments by the federal government in fiscal 2009 totaled $98 billion. Of that amount, $54 billion came from Medicare and Medicaid.
On Wednesday, Obama also will sign a presidential memorandum that will direct federal departments and agencies to expand and increase their use of payment recapture audits. According to the White House, such efforts could return more than $2 billion in taxpayer money over the next three years — double the amount currently projected.
Obama also is expected to announce his support for bipartisan legislation now pending in both the Senate and House to expand the authority of government agencies to fund the audits with recaptured payments.
In November 2009, Obama issued an executive order on improper payments featuring three categories of action: increasing transparency, holding agencies accountable and creating compliance incentives.
