Overview of Improper Payments | www.verifypayment.gov

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Reducing Fraud and Errors

The U.S. Government is committed to reducing and recapturing erroneous payments in Federal programs. While identifying and recapturing improper payments is important, prevention of payment errors before they occur should be the first priority. Agencies maintain many databases containing information on a recipient's eligibility to receive Federal benefits, contracts, loans or grants. However, some agencies were not consistently checking all possible data sources that could have prevented improper payments before they occurred. To address this problem, the President required the creation of this website as a one-stop shop that allows agencies to check these databases before making payments or awards in order to identify ineligible recipients and prevent fraud or errors from being made in the first place. This beta website is only a starting point, and we are working with agencies and other stakeholders to develop the site to ensure that is as effective as possible in preventing improper payments.

"Improper payments" occur when funds go to the wrong recipient, the recipient receives the incorrect amount of funds (including overpayments and underpayments), documentation is not available to support a payment, or the recipient uses funds in an improper manner. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, federal agencies reported a government-wide improper payment rate of 5.49%, a decrease from the 5.65% improper payment rate that was reported in 2009. Overall, improper payments totaled $125 billion in FY 2010. Information on improper payment rates for individual high-risk programs is available at PaymentAccuracy.gov. Agencies have developed plans to reduce improper payments and are working with the Office of Management and Budget to implement those plans. Taken together, the Administration aims to reduce the rate of improper payments to 4.18% in Fiscal Year 2013.

The Administration is eager to attack improper payments and is working with Federal and State partners, Congress, and other stakeholders, to reduce the government-wide amount of errors without negatively impacting citizen access to needed programs. To accomplish that goal, the President has announced several initiatives to prevent, reduce, and recapture improper payments. This website represents one of those initiatives – a single access point place that agencies can go to search various government databases in order to check the eligibility of potential contract, grant or benefit recipients.

Improper Payment Target Rates Across the Federal Government

Improper payment target rates across the federal governament image