by Ben Vernia | December 6th, 2010
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform’s December 1 report identifies increasing fraud enforcement as one way of paying for the annual Sustainable Growth Rate payments (a/k/a the “Doc Fix”) and reforming the recently-enacted Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The Commission’s recommendation:
3.3.1 Increase government authority and funding to reduce Medicare fraud.
(Saves $1 billion in 2015, $9 billion through 2020)
The Commission recommends increasing the ability of CMS to combat waste, fraud, and abuse by providing the agency with additional statutory authority and increased resources (through a cap adjustment in the discretionary budget.)
The Commission backed agency budget “cap adjustments” to pay for these, and Department of Labor anti-fraud efforts.
Elsewhere, the Commission suggests that budget scoring should give more weight to the effects of increased fraud enforcement:
In addition, the assessment should also include a review of current scorekeeping practices concerning program integrity savings and to what extent budgetary scoring practices should be updated to more accurately reflect savings from provisions designed to combat fraud and produce future savings.
