Home Health & Hospice Week

President Trump’s budget blueprint does not address Medicare spending exactly, but it does reference a topic that could greatly affect you — fraud-fighting activities.

Trump’s plan “strengthens the integrity and sustainability of Medicare and Medicaid by investing in activities to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and promote high quality and efficient health care,” the White House’s budget blueprint document claims. “Additional funding for the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program has allowed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in recent years to shift away from a ‘payand-chase’ model toward identifying and preventing fraudulent or improper payments from being paid in the first place,” the summary crows. “The return on investment for the HCFAC account was $5 returned for every $1 expended from 2014-2016.”

Big bump: Trump’s budget “proposes HCFAC discretionary funding of $751 million in 2018, which is $70 million higher than the 2017 annualized CR level,” says the blueprint at www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf.