On May 13, Vice President Vance, the chair of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, held a press conference. He announced the deferral of $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid matching payments owed to California, which received considerable attention. He also announced that the HHS Inspector General had by letter that day warned state Attorneys General that they needed to be more aggressive in prosecuting fraud against Medicaid; that received considerably less attention. Then on June 4, Andrew Ferguson, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and co-chair of the White House Task Force, announced that the HHS IG had denied the Hawaii Attorney General’s request for recertification of her state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, cutting off $3 million in federal funds for the costs of that unit. Since other shoes are likely to drop, it’s worth understanding just how nonsensical…
Review your monthly bank statements and credit card bills line-by-line to spot small “tester” transactions of R5 or R10, which fraudsters use to verify if a stolen card is still active.