The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have announced more than $500 million in “anti-fraud savings” from last year.
OPM is tasked with administering health benefits for federal workers, retirees, United States Postal Service (USPS) employees, and their family members. The anti-fraud savings were achieved in the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs, the agency said in a Sept. 29 statement.
Around $237.7 million was saved by reducing or stopping claims before payout, roughly $271.9 million in losses were avoided by changing factors such as billing, and $21.9 million was recovered after payments had gone out.
The Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program is directed at federal workers, retirees, and their survivors. A key difference between FEHB and other federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid is that enrollees are not banned from taking part in pharmacy-sponsored incentive programs.
Postal Service Health Benefits is a separate program under FEHB that is specifically aimed at USPS workers and eligible family members. Enrolling in a Postal Service Health Benefits plan does not change the availability of other insurance programs for the person.
“Fraud in federal health benefits programs drives up costs for employees, retirees, and taxpayers,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in the statement. “These results demonstrate the importance of strong carrier oversight, better data sharing, and earlier detection.”
The OPM said the results support the government-wide efforts of the task force, headed by Vice President JD Vance, to protect the benefits programs from fraud, abuse, and waste.
According to the task force website, more than $260 billion in estimated fraud has been uncovered since January 2025.
Billion-Dollar Medicaid Fraud
According to a report published by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in March, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units—tasked with investigating and prosecuting Medicaid provider fraud and abuse or neglect of patients—recovered almost $2 billion in fiscal year 2025.
Of that, $1.3 billion represented criminal recoveries. This is also the highest criminal recovery total for a year in the past decade, the report said.
To tackle fraud, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) in early September introduced the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Act.
The bill seeks to increase funding for the multi-agency Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control program in order to detect and prosecute healthcare fraud across various programs, including Medicaid and Medicare.
“Taxpayers bear the cost of every dollar lost to fraud, ultimately making healthcare more expensive,” Suozzi said in the statement. “If we want to lower healthcare costs, we need to start by going after waste, fraud, and abuse wherever it’s happening. [Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control] is a tremendously successful program helping us do just that.”
A recent healthcare fraud crackdown under the task force led to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announcing in a Sept. 8 statement that it was barring 11 medical equipment supply companies from receiving certain Medicare payments due to suspected fraudulent billing to the tune of over $3.4 billion.
The suspected fraudulent practices involved billing for medical equipment on behalf of people who were dead. The companies also allegedly supplied equipment to beneficiaries who neither asked for nor received it.
The action was taken against suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies—a category that includes wheelchairs, ventilators, therapeutic shoes, and surgical devices used for reducing fractures.
“Fraudsters who take advantage of the recently deceased to line their pockets represent a level of indecency that we will not stand for,” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in the statement. “Brazen scams like these have plagued Medicare for decades.”
On Sept. 9, the Department of the Treasury said that it had identified roughly $17.5 billion worth of suspicious financial activity potentially associated with healthcare fraud. The department’s financial crimes unit had analyzed over 5,700 reports from 471 financial institutions mapping out fraud patterns and financial trends.
