According to a report released last week, the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) returned over $3.3 billion to the federal government or private individuals as a result of its health care enforcement efforts in fiscal year (FY) 2016, its 20th year in operation. Established by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) under the authority of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), HCFAC was designed to combat fraud and abuse in health care. The total FY 2016 return represents an increase over the $2.4 billion amount reported by the agencies for FY 2015.

The report serves as a useful resource to understand the federal health care fraud enforcement environment. It highlights costs and returns of federal health care fraud enforcement, providing not only amounts recovered from settlements and awards related to civil and criminal investigations but also outlining funds allocated for each departmental function covered by the HCFAC appropriation. Total HCFAC allocations to HHS for 2016 totaled $836 million (approximately $255 million of which was allocated to the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG)) and allocations to DOJ totaled $119 million. The report touts a return on investment of $5 for every dollar expended over the last three years.

The report also includes summaries of high-profile criminal and civil cases involving claims of violations of the False Claims Act (FCA), among other claims. The cases include OIG and HHS enforcement actions as well as some of those pursued by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is an interagency task force composed of OIG and DOJ analysts, investigators, and prosecutors. Successful criminal and civil investigations touch virtually all areas of the health care industry from various health care providers to pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and health maintenance organizations, among others.

The report follows an announcement by the DOJ last December declaring FY 2016’s recovery of more than $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims in all industry sectors to be its third highest annual recovery, the bulk of which, $2.5 billion, resulted from enforcement in the health care industry.