Early on, the OIG pushed hard to develop its fraud hotline as an effective tool to help identify fraud and abuse that might otherwise never be detected. The use of the Hotline by the public has risen exponentially since its early days, and so have the results it has produced. Until recently, the increasing popularity of the Hotline created problems with our ability to provide effective service. The Hotline number was listed on Medicare's EOMB notices being issued in half the States in the country. The resultant large jump in calls to the hotline made the service less effective because many of the calls could not be answered, and many of those that were answered did not involve Medicare fraud.
New equipment is in place to better handle the calls and collect valuable information.
Daily analysis of the calls, previously unavailable, has given the OIG better information on the performance of the Hotline. Finally, the initial message which Hotline callers hear has been changed to re-route those calls that are not about fraud to more appropriate locations, especially Medicare insurance carriers and intermediaries, and to improve the quality of the calls that get through to an operator.