GAO earlier this year reported that about 80 percent of the total relates to five programs: Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the pandemic-based Paycheck Protection Program. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe federal improper payment rate fell below 4 percent in fiscal 2024, OMB has said, a decline it attributed to “a government-wide approach focused on improving up-front controls, prioritizing fraud prevention, and driving increased collaboration between agencies and their inspectors general.”
The 3.97 percent rate is the lowest in a decade and the second lowest since 2009, it said, citing as an example a reduction in the Medicaid program to 5.1 percent, down from the 21.7 percent of 2021.
The decline in the overall figure followed an increase reported late last year from 5.12 to 5.43 percent in fiscal 2023 over 2022, which OMB at that time said that was mainly due to an increase in payments with insufficient documentation and not necessarily an indicator of more overpayments or fraud. OMB also said at the time that the rate would have been 4.03 percent except for especially high rates in pandemic-related programs.
Improper payments, and especially those related to pandemic relief programs, have been a focus of special attention from Capitol Hill and oversight bodies such as the GAO, individual agency inspectors general and the central pandemic spending oversight council.
GAO earlier this year reported that about 80 percent of the total relates to five programs: Medicare and Medicaid, run by HHS; unemployment insurance, run by Labor; the Earned Income Tax Credit, overseen by Treasury through its component IRS; and the pandemic-based Paycheck Protection Program run by SBA. Of the total, 74 percent were overpayments versus 5 percent underpayments, with 2 percent “technically improper” for reasons such as missing documentation, with the rest unclear.
Updated data by agency and by high-impact program are at paymentaccuracy.gov.
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