Testimony of Dara Corrigan 
Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General 
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I am here today to discuss fraud, 
waste, and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. 
My job is to prevent and eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse in the many programs of the Department 
of Health and Human Services, including Medicare and Medicaid. The Office of Inspector General 
uncovers innocent errors, carelessness, mismanagement, exploitation of the programs, malfeasance, 
and outright fraud every day. Improper behaviors include providers billing for services not 
rendered, falsification of diagnoses, and unnecessary tests or services, abusing and neglecting 
beneficiaries, and accepting kickbacks. These activities cost taxpayers billions in lost and wasted 
dollars and deprive vulnerable beneficiaries of the care and support they need. 
The Medicare and Medicaid programs are managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 
Services (CMS), which is the largest component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
Services (HHS). The two programs are particularly vulnerable because of their sheer size. 
Combined, they constitute the largest single purchaser of health care in the world with FY 2003 
projected federal outlays of over $435 billion. Medicare and Medicaid outlays represented 33 cents 
of every dollar of health care spent in the United States in FY 2002. Both programs have inherent 
risks not only because of their high outlays, but because of their complex reimbursement rules and 
decentralized operations.  Medicare alone serves approximately 40 million beneficiaries and 
processes almost 1 billion claims annually. 
With increasing dollars at stake, and with a growing beneficiary population, the potential for 
vulnerabilities in these programs is greater than ever. Fraud, waste and abuse schemes are becoming 
increasingly complex, national in scope, and constantly changing in response to the latest oversight 
efforts by the congress, CMS, our office and our law enforcement partners. 
RECENT MAJOR SETTLEMENTS 
There is no better way to illustrate the problems we are facing in the area of fraud and abuse than to 
describe some of our most recent settlements. The government alleged that HCA Inc. (formerly 
known as Columbia/HCA and HCAThe Healthcare Company) submitted false hospital cost reports 
to the government and paid kickbacks to physicians in exchange for their referral of beneficiaries. 
HCA routinely prepared two sets of cost reports, one that was submitted to the Medicare program, 
and a set of "reserve" cost reports reflecting how the filed cost reports might be adjusted downward 
if Medicare were to audit them.  The information in the detailed "reserve" cost reports showed that a 
variety of costs on the filed cost reports were intentionally inflated, including interest charges and 
capital expenditures. The government also alleged that HCA paid physicians illegal remuneration in 
the form of free rent, free staff, vacations, recruiting bonuses, payments for "consulting" work that 
was not, in fact, performed, and phony partnership distributions. Last month, HCA agreed to pay the 
United States $631 million in civil penalties and damages to resolve its civil liability for these 
activities. 
HCA also entered into a separate administrative settlement with CMS under which it will pay an 
additional $250 million.  Previously, on December 14, 2000, subsidiaries of HCA pleaded guilty to 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 1  substantial criminal conduct, and HCA paid more than $840 million in criminal fines, civil 
restitution and penalties for a variety of conduct, including exaggerating the value of services, 
submitting separate bills for lab tests that should have been bundled, and issues related to the 
acquisition of home health agencies. This case involved the most comprehensive health care fraud 
investigation ever undertaken with total recoveries of $1.7 billion, by far the largest recovery ever 
reached by the government in a health care fraud investigation. More needs to be done on all levels 
to prevent such behavior from occurring. 
Other examples come from the pharmaceutical industry. Three pharmaceutical manufacturers 
recently entered into large settlements relating, in part, to their prescription drug pricing practices. 
TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc., AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, and the Bayer Corporation 
agreed to pay $875 million, $355 million, and $14 million, respectively. The government alleged 
that each company reported their wholesale prices at levels far higher than the actual acquisition cost 
paid by the majority of physicians and other customers, and marketed the spread between the 
acquisition cost and the reimbursement, thereby causing their customers to receive excess Medicare 
and Medicaid reimbursement. 
MEDICARE VULNERABILITIES 
Specific areas of the Medicare program are particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse or 
quality control problems. They include the following: 
Prescription Drugs 
As indicated by the settlements I described, prescription drug pricing is particularly problematic for 
Medicare.  Because prescription drugs are essential to proper treatment, it is important that Medicare 
beneficiaries access to pharmaceuticals not be hindered by overpricing. While the Medicare 
program covers only a limited family of drugs outside the hospital setting, the cost is quite 
substantial. Medicare and its beneficiaries paid more than $8.2 billion for covered drugs in FY 
2002. 
Our office has consistently found that Medicare pays too much for these drugs - more than most 
other payers. For example, Medicare payments for 24 leading drugs in 2000 were $887 million 
higher than actual wholesale prices available to physicians and suppliers and $1.9 billion higher than 
prices available through the Federal Supply Schedule used by Veterans Affairs and other federal 
purchasers. This excessive payment continues to grow as the amount paid by Medicare grows 
larger. 
Excessive Medicare prescription drug payments are caused by a number of factors, including billing 
errors, misinterpretations or abuse of existing rules, and flaws in the reimbursement system.  By law, 
Medicares payment is based on the drugs average wholesale price. However, our reports have 
shown that published wholesale prices used to establish Medicare payment rates often bear little or 
no resemblance to actual wholesale prices available to physicians, suppliers, and other large 
government purchasers. The Medicare program does not receive average wholesale prices directly 
from drug manufacturers or wholesalers. Instead, Medicare relies on prices published by data 
reporting companies that base the reported average wholesale price, in part, on the information 
provided by manufacturers. Because physicians and suppliers keep the difference between the 
actual price they pay for a drug and Medicares reimbursement (based on its published average 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 2  wholesale price), they have a financial incentive to buy from a drug company with the highest 
published amount. Thus, manufacturers may have a financial incentive to exaggerate their 
wholesale price in an attempt to gain market share. 
Medical Equipment and Supplies 
In FY 2002, Medicare allowed $9.4 billion in claims for medical equipment and supplies, of which 
beneficiaries paid at least $1.9 billion out of their own pockets. Medicare covers 9 varieties of 
medical equipment and supplies, such as durable medical equipment. These are items that can 
withstand repeated use and include oxygen equipment, hospital beds, wheelchairs, nebulizers, and 
other equipment that physicians prescribe for home use. Medical supplies include catheter, ostomy, 
incontinence, and wound care supplies. Medicare also covers braces and artificial limbs. 
Medicare pays too much for certain items of medical equipment and supplies because Medicare 
reimbursement rates for these items are based on charges submitted to the program in 1987. As a 
result, Medicare payments bear little resemblance to prices currently available in the marketplace or 
to the actual cost of manufacturing and distributing the equipment. We have also uncovered flaws in 
payment methods and practices for specific kinds of medical equipment. 
As part of a Congressional request, we compared Medicare prices for 16 medical equipment and 
supply items with the prices from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), State Medicaid 
agencies, federal employee health plans, and retail suppliers. These 16 items, including standard 
wheelchairs, IV poles, and certain hospital beds and walkers, accounted for more than $1.7 billion of 
the $6.8 billion Medicare paid for medical equipment and supplies in 2000. This work confirms 
findings from previous reviews where we found that Medicare pays higher than market prices for 
some items.  For example, we found that the VA median prices ranged from 31 to 88 percent less 
than the Medicare prices.  In addition, Medicare prices were more than the median retail price for 
10 of the 16 items.  These median prices were as much as 73 percent less than Medicare prices. If 
Medicare based reimbursement on such lower prices, the program could save an estimated $84 
million to $958 million a year. 
In another review, we found that Medicare paid substantially more for maintenance on rented 
equipment than repairs on purchased equipment. Under current statutory requirements, Medicare 
pays for maintenance even if the supplier does not need to service the equipment. We found that 
only 9 percent of the rental equipment actually received any maintenance and servicing. We 
estimated that Medicare could save approximately $100 million per year by eliminating maintenance 
payments and instead paying only for repairs when needed. 
Medicare Contractors 
The Medicare program is administered by CMS with the help of 47 contractors that handle claims 
processing and administration. The contractors are responsible for paying health care providers, 
providing a full accounting of funds, and conducting activities designed to safeguard the program. 
The two main types of Medicare contractors are fiscal intermediaries and carriers.  Intermediaries 
process claims filed under Part A of the Medicare program from institutions, such as hospitals, 
skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies; carriers process claims under Part B of the 
program from other health care providers, such as physicians and medical equipment suppliers. The 
CMS also uses specialty contractors such as payment safeguard contractors, which focus on matters 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 3  related to fraud, waste, and abuse at the carrier and intermediary level, and the durable medical 
equipment regional carriers, which specialize in analysis and processing of billings for medical 
equipment and supplies. 
Of all the problems we have observed, perhaps the most troubling has to do with the contractors 
own integrity such as misusing Government funds, actively trying to conceal these actions, and 
altering documents and falsifying statements that specific work was performed. This was illustrated 
by the 2002 settlement with General American Life Insurance Company, Inc., in which the company 
agreed to pay the government $76 million. The settlement resolved allegations that the former 
Medicare carrier engaged in improper claims handling and quality assurance reporting practices to 
maintain a high performance ranking. However, this is only one example. To date, the federal 
government has settled 19 cases involving contractor fraud, with settlements ranging from 
approximately $48,000 to $76 million. 
In some cases, contractors prepared documents that inaccurately indicated superior performance, 
which Medicare then rewarded with bonuses and additional contracts. Some contractors adjusted 
their claims processing so that system edits designed to prevent inappropriate payments were turned 
off, resulting in misspent Medicare Trust Fund dollars.  Contractor cost reports were found to 
contain improprieties, such as double-billing and claiming private insurance business costs as if they 
were costs incurred under Medicare contracts. 
Other Examples 
The results of recent investigations reveal the great variety of fraudulent behavior that we must deal 
with. Here are a few examples. 
Cancer Treatments.  A physician in Indiana developed a scheme to defraud Medicare and several 
other insurance providers by providing unapproved treatments to terminally ill cancer patients. The 
doctor injected these patients with live cells from pigs and cows under the guise of live cell 
therapy. He also provided shake and bake therapy by injecting the patients with a sand-like 
substance that caused the patients temperature to rise to a point where they convulsed under the 
theory that the cancer was being baked out of the patients systems. All of these therapies were 
billed as if chemotherapy was being provided. 
Nerve Conduction Tests. A South Carolina doctor schemed to defraud the Medicare program by 
forcing his patients to undergo unnecessary nerve conduction tests. These tests were conducted 
regardless of the patients diagnoses or symptoms.  The doctor would withhold the patients 
medications until they agreed to undergo the tests. 
Lab Tests.  In Massachusetts, a laboratory submitted claims for unnecessary tests and blood draws 
on terminally ill dialysis patients. The blood drawn from these patients was then used to run series 
of unnecessary tests to receive Medicare reimbursements. 
Equipment and Supplies. In Florida, over 30 people conducted a large-scale scheme to defraud the 
Medicare program by billing for durable medical equipment supplies that were not provided to 
beneficiaries and/or not medically necessary.  This scheme involved billing Medicare for motorized 
wheelchairs and other high-cost equipment by more than 40 companies. Kickbacks were paid to 
doctors in return for their signing of required Certificates of Medical Necessity. Co-pays that should 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 4  have been paid by the beneficiaries for the equipment were waived in order to establish good-will 
with the beneficiaries and to keep them from possibly complaining. Much of the proceeds from this 
scheme were sent to overseas bank accounts. 
MEDICAID VULNERABILITIES 
The Social Security Act authorizes grants to states to provide medical assistance to needy persons. 
The Medicaid program is administered by the various states in accordance with approved state plans. 
While states have considerable flexibility in designing their state plans and operating their Medicaid 
programs, they must comply with broad federal requirements. Medicaid programs are jointly 
financed by the federal and state governments according to a defined formula. The federal 
percentage ranges from 50 percent to 83 percent, depending on each states relative per capita 
income. 
Prescription Drug Pricing and Drug Rebates 
Like Medicare, the Medicaid program faces significant vulnerabilities in the prescription drug area, 
a weakness that is compounded by the fact the Medicaid currently reimburses for many more drugs 
than does Medicare.  These vulnerabilities arise in two areas:  reimbursements for prescription drugs 
and the collection of rebates under the Medicaid drug rebate program. 
The Medicaid program faces many of the same problems as Medicare in paying for prescription 
drugs. States generally use the average wholesale price minus a percentage discount as a basis for 
reimbursing pharmacies for both brand name and generic drug prescriptions. The average discount 
for both brand and generic drugs combined was about 10.3 percent nationally in 1999. We believe 
larger discounts are warranted because of the wide disparity between what a Medicaid agency pays 
pharmacies for the drug as compared to the actual pharmacy acquisition cost. As discussed in the 
Medicare section, reimbursement based on the average wholesale price creates certain adverse 
incentives and is subject to abuse. 
Following are the results of our brand name and generic prescription drug reviews.  These reviews 
were limited to ingredient acquisition costs and did not address other areas such as the cost of 
dispensing the drugs. Generally, states pay retail pharmacies for the ingredient cost of the drug 
(average wholesale price minus a certain percentage) plus a dispensing fee. We have recommended 
that CMS require the states to bring pharmacy drug reimbursement more in line with the actual 
acquisition costs of both brand and generic drugs. CMS concurred that an accurate acquisition cost 
should be used to determine drug reimbursement and will encourage states to review their estimates 
of acquisition costs in light of our findings. 
Brand Name Drugs.  In a final report issued in August 2001, we pointed out that about $1 billion in 
savings could have been realized for 200 brand name drugs with the greatest amount of Medicaid 
reimbursement in 1999. Our review of pricing information from 216 pharmacies in 8 states 
estimated that pharmacy actual acquisition costs nationwide averaged about 22 percent below the 
average wholesale price in 1999. 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 5  Generic Drugs. In a report issued in March 2002, we concluded that significant savings could be 
realized on generic prescription drugs reimbursed by states under the Medicaid program.  Our 
review of pricing information from 217 pharmacies in 8 states estimated that pharmacy actual 
acquisition cost nationwide for generic drugs averaged 65.9 percent below average wholesale price 
rather than the 10.3 percent discount most states averaged. For the 200 generic drugs with the 
greatest amount of Medicaid reimbursement in 1999, we calculated that as much as $470 million 
could have been saved if reimbursement had been based on a 65.9 percent average discount. Our 
current recommendations center on an additional analysis that I will describe next. 
Multi-Tiered Pharmacy Reimbursement System. As a follow-up to our previous work on brand 
and generic drug pricing, we conducted an extended review by identifying discounts off the average 
wholesale price for specific categories of drugs.  This analysis showed that there is a wide range of 
discounts for purchases depending on the category of drug that is being purchased.  Accordingly, we 
recommended that if states continue to use a reimbursement system based on average wholesale 
price, CMS should encourage states to bring pharmacy reimbursement more in line with the actual 
acquisition cost of drug products. 
Drug Rebates. As a condition for having their prescription drugs reimbursed by the program, 
Medicaid requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to enter into written agreements with the 
Department and to pay rebates to the states. This is a feature absent from the Medicare program. 
The Medicaid drug rebate program, for which no final regulation has ever been published, requires a 
manufacturer to report certain pricing information, including its best price, to CMS and to pay 
rebates to the state Medicaid programs based on the reported prices. A manufacturers failure to 
properly determine and report its best price can lead to the significant underpayment of rebates to 
Medicaid. Three major pharmaceutical drug manufacturers recently settled False Claims Act cases 
for their failure to comply with requirements of the Medicaid drug rebate program and to pay 
appropriate rebates to the states. Bayer Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer Inc. paid 
approximately $257 million, almost $88 million, and $49 million, respectively, to resolve these 
cases. 
We have often said that Medicaid should have a level playing field on how it collects rebates and 
how it pays for drugs. Currently, rebates are based on the average manufacturers price while 
reimbursement is generally based on the average wholesale price. Significant savings could be 
realized if drug rebates and drug reimbursements both had the same basis. If the basis for 
reimbursement and rebates is the same, any increase in the reimbursement basis would have a 
corresponding increase in rebates to Medicaid. 
Upper Payment Limits 
The Office of Inspector General has found problems with states billing the Federal Government for 
payments made to public providers when in fact the funds do not remain at the provider for use for 
medical services. For example, we found that some states required public providers to return 
Medicaid payments to the state governments through intergovernmental transfers. Once the 
payments were returned, the states would use the funds for other purposes, some of which were 
unrelated to Medicaid. Although this practice could potentially occur with any type of Medicaid 
payment to public facilities, we identified two instances in which such payments were prevalent: 
Medicaid enhanced payments available under upper payment limits and Medicaid disproportionate 
share hospital payments. I will discuss the upper payment limit provision first. 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 6  State Medicaid agencies have flexibility to set the rates they pay to hospitals and nursing facilities. 
There is a limit, however, as to how much can be paid in the aggregate within the state.  In 
regulation, this is termed a Medicaid upper payment limit. This upper limit required that all the 
individual payments to the facilities cannot exceed what the Medicare program would have paid for 
similar services. Federal regulations in effect before March 13, 2001 established two groups of 
aggregate limits. One group pertained to all providers in the state (private, state-, city-, or county-
operated). This second group applied to the state-operated facilities. 
These payments were made as enhanced or additional payments that exceeded the regular payments 
for Medicaid services. For example, if Medicaid paid $5,000 for a hospital inpatient service, but 
Medicare would have paid $6,000 for that same service, the $1,000 difference would have been the 
additional amount that the state could have claimed under the regulations.  The states used this 
calculation to their advantage by claiming federal funds up to the limit but did not always allow for 
the facilities to retain these funds to pay for actual delivery of medical services. The Federal funds 
returned to the state through intergovernmental transfers were then available to the states for any 
purpose, including issues not related to health care. 
In short, this use of intergovernmental transfers as part of the enhanced payment program was a 
financing mechanism designed to maximize federal Medicaid reimbursements by avoiding the 
federal/state matching requirements. The result is a lack of accountability for Medicaid dollars, 
including their being used for purposes not intended by the Medicaid statute. 
In an effort to curb these practices and ensure that state Medicaid payment systems promote 
economy and efficiency, CMS issued a final rule, effective March 13, 2001, which modified upper 
payment limit regulations in accordance with the Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000. 
The regulatory action created three aggregate upper payment limits -- one each for private, state, and 
non-state government-operated facilities. The new regulations will be gradually phased in and 
become fully effective on October 1, 2008. We commend CMS for changing the upper payment 
limit regulations. The CMS projected that these revisions will save $55 billion in federal Medicaid 
funds over the next 10 years. The CMS also changed the enhanced payments that states may pay 
public hospitals from 100 percent to 150 percent of the amount that would be paid under Medicare 
payment principles. We recommended continuing to limit payments to 100 percent, and CMS 
implemented the recommendation, achieving an additional savings of $24.3 billion over 10 years. 
At the request of CMS, our office will conduct audits to monitor compliance with the new 
regulations. 
When fully implemented, CMSs changes will dramatically limit, though not entirely eliminate, the 
amount of state financial manipulation because the regulation does not require that enhanced funds 
be retained by the targeted facilities to provide medical services to Medicaid beneficiaries. 
Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments 
Medicaid makes special payments designed to assist hospitals that provide care to a large number of 
Medicaid beneficiaries and uninsured patients.  These disproportionate share payments are 
important because public safety net hospitals face special circumstances and play a critical role in 
providing care to vulnerable populations.  However, we found that hospitals that retained enhanced 
payments available under the upper payment limit regulations did not use the special payments for 
their disproportionate share of Medicaid and uninsured beneficiaries.  Instead, audit results in 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 7  several states showed that public hospitals returned large portions (80 to 90 percent) of the payments 
to the state Medicaid agencies through intergovernmental transfers. We have expanded our audit 
work to additional states to further review these special payments being made to hospitals. 
In addition, we have found that disproportionate share payments to individual hospitals exceeded 
hospital specific limits imposed by OBRA of 1993.  To date, we have identified about $645 million 
(federal share) in payments that exceed the OBRA limit. The limits were exceeded for a variety of 
reasons, including the lack of a mechanism at the state level to ensure that the payments did not 
exceed the actual cost of providing services, duplication of costs, exceeding Medicare cost limits, 
and the inclusion of unallowable/non-hospital costs in uncompensated care costs. 
We recommend that public hospitals retain the state and federal shares of the enhanced Medicaid 
payments up to the 100 percent aggregate limit payable under Medicare payment principles and 
receive and retain 100 percent of the state and federal shares of allowable disproportionate share 
payments and use the funds for delivering medical services to Medicaid beneficiaries. 
REMEDIAL MEASURES 
Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program 
The problems that I have discussed with you today are extremely complex. The Office of Inspector 
General helps prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse through a comprehensive and sustained 
program of audits, investigations, evaluations, enforcement, and outreach. Since the passage of the 
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, our effectiveness has been 
strengthened through an increased and predictable funding base for our office and CMS for fraud 
and abuse control efforts. Annual increases were authorized through the end of this year. 
With these resources, our office conducted or participated in 568 successful health care prosecutions 
or settlements in FY 2002. A total of 3,448 individuals and entities were excluded, many as a result 
of criminal convictions. In the same period, the Department acted on our recommendations to 
disallow almost $300 million in improperly paid health care funds, and another $1.5 billion is 
expected as receivables from investigative activities.  Implementation of our recommendations to 
correct systemic vulnerabilites resulted in more than $19 billion in savings in FY 2002. 
The Office of Inspector General does not work alone.  We are joined by the Department of Justice 
and a host of other partners, among them the state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) and state 
auditors. 
Medicaid Fraud Control Units 
The responsibility for detecting, investigating and prosecuting fraud and abuse in the Medicaid 
program is shared between the federal and state governments. Each state is required to have a 
program integrity unit dedicated to detecting and investigating suspected cases of Medicaid fraud. 
Most states fulfill this requirement by establishing a Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Each of the 
Medicaid state agencies also has a Medicaid Management Information System.  A subpart of this 
data system is the Surveillance and Utilization Review Subsystems Units. These units are charged 
with ferreting out fraud by conducting preliminary reviews of providers and beneficiaries with 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 8  aberrant claims or billing patterns that possibly indicate criminal fraud. When potential fraud cases 
are detected, the cases are referred to the MFCUs. 
Since the inception of the Medicaid fraud control program, the MFCUs have recovered hundreds of 
millions of program dollars. The Office of Inspector General, MFCUs, and other law enforcement 
agencies work together to coordinate anti-fraud efforts.  These partnerships have greatly enhanced 
our ability to carry out our mission. In FY 2002, we conducted joint investigations with the MFCUs 
on 218 criminal cases and 37 civil cases. During this time there were 70 criminal convictions and 17 
civil settlements or judgments on cases worked jointly with the MFCUs. 
State Medicaid Audit Partnership 
Another important cooperative effort includes state Medicaid audit partnerships.  The partnership 
plan was created as a way to provide broader coverage of the Medicaid program by collaborating 
with state auditors, state Medicaid agencies, and state internal audit groups. The level of 
involvement of each partner is flexible and can vary depending upon specific situations and 
available resources. The OIG role might entail sharing our methodology and experience in 
examining similar Medicaid issues. In other cases, we may join together with state teams to audit 
suspected problems. 
For example, an audit conducted with the Delaware state auditor indicated that a state agency had 
overpaid Medicaid managed care organizations and other health care providers $364,000 for 
services rendered on behalf of deceased recipients.  The overpayments resulted because of major 
weaknesses in internal controls. The state agreed to recover the overpayments and has begun to 
strengthen internal controls.  Other issues examined in this partnership program with state auditors 
include `Medicaid outpatient prescription drugs, unbundling of clinical laboratory services, 
outpatient non-physician services already included as an inpatient charge, excessive costs related to 
hospital transfers, excessive payments for durable medical equipment, acquisition costs for Medicaid 
drugs, and program issues related to managed care. 
To date, these joint efforts have been developed in 25 states.  Completed reports have identified 
$263 million in federal and state savings and included recommendations for improvement in internal 
controls and computer systems operations. 
Industry Outreach and Education 
The Office of Inspector General is interested not only in detecting and dealing with fraud, waste, and 
abuse, but also in preventing it. One way we do this through outreach. We have engaged in 
numerous outreach efforts designed to work with the health care industry to assist providers in 
preventing fraud, waste, and abuse, and to increase their compliance with federal health care 
program requirements. Information about these outreach efforts and results of our audits, 
investigations, evaluations, and enforcement initiatives are routinely made available through the 
Internet on our website at www.oig.hhs.gov.  Our office continues to work with the health care 
industry to gain an understanding of the issues confronted by the industry as providers implement 
and maintain compliance programs. Prevention initiatives, such as those listed below, inform and 
assist the health care industry and program beneficiaries. 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 9  Compliance Program Guidance. Compliance program guidances promote industry awareness of 
models for corporate integrity and compliance programs. Thus far, we have issued 11 compliance 
program guidances for various sectors of the health care industry such as hospitals, laboratories, 
home health agencies, and ambulance services. Each guidance provides concrete suggestions for 
designing and implementing internal controls and procedures to address identified risk areas for the 
applicable health care sector. These guidances are not mandatory. They provide recommendations 
on the voluntary establishment of systems, structures and policies that enhance compliance with 
federal health care program requirements. 
Advisory Opinions. Through the advisory opinion process, parties can obtain binding legal 
guidance as to whether their existing or proposed health care business transactions violate the 
federal anti-kickback statute, the civil monetary penalties laws, or our offices exclusion authorities. 
The advisory opinion process enhances OIGs understanding of new and emerging health care 
business arrangements and informs our development of new safe harbor regulations, fraud alerts, and 
special advisory bulletins.  We have issued 20 advisory opinions in FY 2002 and 14 to date in FY 
2003.  More than 100 advisory opinions have been issued since 1997. 
Corporate Integrity Agreements. Many health care providers that enter into agreements with the 
United States in settlement of potential liability for violations of the False Claims Act or Civil 
Monetary Penalties Law also agree to adhere to a corporate integrity agreement. Under the 
agreement, the provider commits to establishing a program or taking other specified steps to ensure 
its future compliance with federal health care program requirements. The duration of most 
agreements is 5 years, during which time providers must undertake audits of their billings to the 
federal health care programs, typically conducted by an independent review organization, such as an 
accounting firm, and submit periodic reports to our office. Integrity agreements require a substantial 
commitment by the provider to ensure that the organization is operating in accordance with federal 
health care program requirements and the parameters established by the agreement itself.  Breach 
and default provisions in the CIAs help to ensure compliance with their requirements. As of the 
current date, we are monitoring more than 350 corporate integrity agreements. 
Assessment of Progress in Addressing the Challenge 
To help ensure the financial integrity of the Medicare program, and the continued availability of 
Medicare benefits, it continues to be essential that documented and accurate bills are submitted for 
correct payment for properly rendered health care services. We reported that improper payments 
under Medicares fee-for-service system totaled an estimated $13.3 billion during 2002, or 6.3 
percent of the $212.7 billion in fee-for-service payments processed by CMS. That estimate is about 
half of the $23.2 billion that was estimated for 1996, when OIG developed the first national error 
rate. The error rate does not include improper payments made as a result of falsified documents, 
kickbacks, or other types of undetectable fraud. It does reflect progress in reducing waste due to 
improper billings.  Our 7-year analysis indicates that over 80 percent of the claims that did not meet 
reimbursement requirements were attributable to unsupported and medically unnecessary costs  
two areas that will receive ongoing monitoring. As in past years, we estimated that over 92 percent 
of the 2002 fee-for-service payments met Medicare reimbursement requirements. CMS has 
demonstrated continued vigilance in monitoring the error rate and developing appropriate corrective 
action plans. In addition, due to CMSs work with the provider community to clarify reimbursement 
rules and to impress upon health care providers the importance of fully documenting services, the 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 10  overwhelming majority of health care providers follow Medicare reimbursement rules and bill 
correctly. 
In FY 2003, CMS will fully implement its Comprehensive Error Rate Testing Program and the 
Hospital Payment Monitoring Program to produce a Medicare fee-for-service error rate. This 
methodology will establish, for the first time, baselines to measure each contractors progress toward 
correctly processing and paying claims.  The results will reflect the contractors performance and 
will identify specific provider billing anomalies in the region. Contractors will then develop 
targeted corrective action plans to reduce payment errors through provider education, claim reviews, 
and other activities, and CMS will evaluate their rate of improvement. 
CONCLUSION 
As I stated at the beginning of my testimony, I believe a concentrated effort by a large number of 
people has resulted in tangible progress in combating fraud, waste, and abuse in recent years. 
However, the problems that remain are serious, complicated, and have profound consequences.  I am 
particularly concerned about the deliberate fraud that we know continues. We must never let down 
our guard, and we must continue to dedicate the resources and make the concerted effort to reduce 
these problems. 
We are doing our best to stay on top of this situation, and are continuously involving all of our 
partners in the enterprise. Since the Congress itself is one of our partners, I would like to take this 
opportunity to recommend for your consideration a dual strategy for dealing with fraud, waste, and 
abuse on the legislative front. 
The first strategy is to prevent these abuses from happening. This can be done through legislation to 
address aspects of programs where their underlying statutes make them vulnerable or where changes 
in the statutes would be more conducive to effective administrative action. One good example is the 
authority for Medicare payments for prescription drugs, frequently mentioned in my testimony. This 
problem needs prompt action to prevent wasteful spending of hundreds of millions of taxpayer 
dollars every year, with the losses mounting with each passing month. Additional proposals are 
found in our Red Book of savings that we publish annually based on our audits and evaluations. 
Of course, it is important to make sure that legislation for new programs does not create new 
vulnerabilities. Protection from fraud, waste, and abuse needs to be crafted into the legislation itself. 
We stand ready to assist the Congress in this regard. Indeed, one of our responsibilities under the 
Inspector General Act is to provide advice on proposed legislation. 
The second strategy is to ensure that adequate, reliable, and predictable resources are available to 
our office and our law enforcement and administrative partners. Most of the achievements by our 
office were made possible by the enhanced resources provided through the Health Care Fraud and 
Abuse Control Program.  As stated previously, funding under this program at enhanced levels is 
essential to our continued success in addressing the problems I have identified in my testimony 
today. It will also further assist our office in its continued outreach activities with the health care 
industry to increase the industrys awareness and further improve its record of voluntary compliance. 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 11  I appreciate the opportunity you have given me today to focus attention on the continuing problems 
and vulnerabilities that confront us and to share with you some of our efforts and recent initiatives. 
I welcome your questions. 
House Budget Committee 
Hearing: July 9, 2003  Page 12