In a report released on February 26th, the federal government stated that its Heath Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (“HCFAC”), established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), recovered $4.3 billion during FY 2013.
This amount includes more than $2.6 billion from healthcare fraud settlements and judgments and is the largest annual amount collected since HIPAA provided funding for the program. Over the last five years, the government has recovered $19.2 billion, compared to $9.4 billion collected during the prior five-year period.
The government provided these figures as a part of an annual report to Congress from the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”). The report included further information regarding the government’s enforcement activities during the last fiscal year.
Specifically, in FY 2013, the DOJ opened 1,013 new healthcare fraud criminal investigations and 1,083 new civil healthcare fraud investigations. Similarly, HHS’ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) brought 849 criminal actions against persons engaged in Medicare or Medicaid related crimes and 458 civil actions.
