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The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that billions of dollars are lost annually from the Medicare and Medicaid programs due to improper payments through error, fraud, or abuse. While the vast majority of health care providers are honest, the efforts of a small number of unscrupulous individuals are causing our health care programs to lose hundreds of millions of dollars per year and reducing the quality of care provided to many older and disabled Americans.
Since 1997, the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA) has worked in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration), the Department of Justice, community-based grantees, retired professionals, service and health care providers, AARP, and other interested individuals and organizations to address this serious national problem.
In the initial phase of this initiative, known as ORT, $23 was returned in improper payments, fines and settlements for every dollar spent on the effort. Today, AoA provides grants to community-based agencies in nearly every state to train volunteers how to educate Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and their families how to protect their Medicare number as they would their credit card, how to take a more active role in protecting their health care programs, and how to detect and report potential instances of error, fraud, and abuse.
You may also interact with AoA by sending comments and suggestions to Barbara.Lewis@aoa.gov.
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" Medicare spends more than $210 billion each year on health care benefits for nearly 40 million beneficiaries. "
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