Last week, Senators Coburn and Carper introduced a bill that would combat billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Among its provisions, the Medicare and Medicaid Fighting Fraud and Abuse to Save Taxpayer Dollars Act (S.1251), also known as the FAST Act, would: enact stronger penalties for Medicare fraud; curb improper payments and establish stronger fraud and waste prevention strategies to help phase out the practice of "pay and chase"; curb the theft of physician identities; expand the fraud identification and reporting work of the Senior Medicare Patrol; take steps to help states identify and prevent Medicaid overpayments; improve the sharing of fraud data across agencies and programs; and deploy cutting-edge technology to better identify and prevent fraud.

Additional information about the FAST Act:

• Section-By-Section summary here
• Policy snapshot: a short summary of the bill's policies here
• Problem & Solutions document: real life examples of fraud and FAST Act solutions that address each case here
• Fraud in the news: a sampling of cases of fraud that have been reported just within the past year here
• A Congressional Research Service report on the integrity of the Medicare program here
• The FAST Act "By the Numbers" sheet here

The FAST Act continues to receive support from a wide range of groups. Support letters include:

• HMS
• National Coalition on Health Care
• Citizens Against Government Waste
• Emdeon
• Taxpayers for Common Sense
• National Taxpayers Union
• AARP
• Thomson Reuters
• National Community Pharmacists Association
• America’s Health Insurance Plans
• The American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeon
• Lexis Nexis
• Center for American Progress
• Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare
• American Chiropractic Association