SAS announced yesterday that Michigan will use the SAS Fraud Framework for Government to, initially, combat fraud, waste and abuse in the state’s unemployment insurance and food stamp programs. Those two programs are good focus areas and I’m confident they will lead to the state recovering funds, avoiding losses and saving tax payer money. Even better, the enterprise system they are building allows data from other agencies to be added over time to tackle fraud in other areas. This data sharing will lead to visibility across programs. Organized fraudsters are coordinated and adaptable, and take a more sophisticated, enterprise approach to defrauding government programs than many states do protecting them.

I wrote in a recent Government Security News article:

“Fraud rings, organized criminal networks and collusion are now more pervasive in government, and take a holistic view across programs. Professional fraud rings are not just exploiting one government program, or even one at a time. They are very creative in exploiting the gaps across the spectrum.

Thwarting these criminals requires an enterprise approach, where departments and agencies share a common technology layer with common investigative capabilities. So, if I’m investigating a public assistance program provider for both claims fraud and tax evasion, the investigation can be coordinated between the two departments. For example, one customer I talked to recently manually cross-matched tax fraud investigation information with Medicaid investigations and found an 85 percent overlap. The fact is bad people do bad things across the spectrum.”

Michigan is one of several states embracing a holistic, statewide approach to fighting fraud, waste and abuse. I hope to be able to share more examples soon. In the meantime, I am always on the lookout for examples of fraud fighting across programs and agencies. Please share examples in the comments section.