Craig Smith Offers Plan to Crack Down on Medicaid and Medicare Fraud

The U.S. House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, chaired by Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, held a hearing on Wednesday on Medicaid and Medicare fraud and heard ideas from Craig Smith, who served in the state Agency for Health Care Administration, on how to curb it -- and cut down the fraud which costs taxpayers anywhere between $60 billion and $90 billion, according to estimates.

In my view, the best techniques are those that prevent improper payments in the first place, said Smith.With a greater emphasis on prepayment fraud and abuse prevention, we can decrease significantly the loss of taxpayer dollars and make health-care fraud a much less desirable career path.

Smith offered a number of ideas which he said would help reduce fraud, including better oversight of providers and better screening of both providers and suppliers; reducing fee-for-service reimbursements; giving doctors more authority in reporting fraud; and using predictive modeling and new technologies.

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