FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: November 25 2024
Contact: Jon Ebelt, Communications Director, DPHHS, (406) 444-0936, (406) 461-3757
jebelt@mt.gov
DPHHS Awarded Grant to Bolster Public Assistance Fraud Detection
Funds will help crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and ensure taxpayer dollars are being used appropriately
HELENA - Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) Director Charlie Brereton today announced the department was awarded $425,000 in federal funding to help improve the detection of waste, fraud, and abuse involving public assistance programs.
“Our administration will continue taking steps to verify that those receiving public assistance are in fact eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits,” Dir. Brereton said. “This new funding will allow us to implement more technology to ensure that public assistance programs remain available for those who truly need them.”
DPHHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) was among 10 successful recipients of the 2024 SNAP Fraud Framework Implementation Grant. A total of 15 applications were submitted to the federal government for consideration.
The grant will be utilized to upgrade DPHHS’s current system to better detect and prevent fraudulent online submissions.
DPHHS will spend several months designing, developing, and testing the enhanced technology before deployment in summer 2025.
State officials say using technology to analyze vast amounts of data will reduce resources spent on manual extrapolation of data and more efficiently identify potentially fraudulent activity through reports that note case outliers.
Technology can identify the misuse of public assistance benefits by utilizing pre-determined fraud indicators to produce a list of cases where there is a high probability of fraud. Data analytics will monitor submission information for potential misuse and improve fraud detection methods to support more robust investigations.
Examples of a high probability case is a public assistance benefits application submitted online from an individual living outside the State of Montana, or multiple application submissions from the same computer and/or with the same phone number.
DPHHS OIG’s Program Integrity (PI) section identifies, detects, and investigates allegations of suspected recipient fraud and abuse in the Medicaid, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs.
Better capturing and analyzing information associated with online application submissions will ultimately allow the PI section to track and identify potential recipient fraud while also streamlining investigation and disposition reporting.
“ Effective fraud prevention, detection, and investigations are essential for maintaining program integrity,” Program Compliance Bureau Chief Heather Smith said. “ Investigating potentially fraudulent cases earlier will decrease the issuance of erroneous benefits.”
The PI section received 1,528 referrals from program eligibility workers, other state agencies, and members of the public during State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2024. There were 1,625 referrals in SFY 2023, and 2,035 referrals in SFY 2022.
However, allegations of SNAP fraud account for 94% of the referrals. Out of all the referrals received, PI issued 241 SNAP disqualifications during SFY 2024 for program violations, 280 during SFY 2023, and 320 in SFY 2022.
Fraud occurs when an individual intentionally withholds or misrepresents information for the purpose of obtaining benefits they may not be eligible to receive. Some examples of fraud include new applications with false information, not reporting all household members, not reporting new or increased income streams, or continuing to receive benefits after moving out of state.
In addition, DPHHS utilizes the National Accuracy Clearinghouse to identify concurrent SNAP enrollment in multiple states and conducts additional validations within the eligibility determination process to prevent fraud and abuse.
For more information about the USDA SNAP Fraud Framework Grant, visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.