With an 11.2 percent improper payment rate, the Labor Department distributes $17.5 billion in unemployment insurance incorrectly each year. With support--and likely pressure--from the Office of Management and Budget, DOL plans to cut improper payment rates with a new strategy that leans heavily on information technology.

The department will soon offer grants to help improve states' operating procedures and use technology that helps quickly identify UI claimants who have returned to work and continue to claim benefits--a target population that accounts for about 30 percent of improper payments, said a senior administration official from DOL during a Sept. 14 press briefing.

"We'll give a second round of grants out to states to help them utilize technology to more quickly obtain information concerning the UI claimants reason for leaving their previous employer, that again accounts for about another 30 percent of our improper payments," said the DOL official, who spoke on condition of non-attribution.

The department will release a third category of grants to states to help modify their automated systems to more quickly implement the Treasury Offset Program, or TOP, which is used to collect improper payments by withdrawing from individuals' tax refunds.

Several department officials made announcements during the press call, which was held slightly prior to Vice President Joe Biden's first cabinet meeting on the Campaign to Cut Waste. President Barack Obama signed the related executive order in June.

White House officials did not explicitly say IT will be a focus of the governmentwide waste-cutting campaign, but several departments could find it a necessary tool in cutting administrative expenses--especially with printing services, which White House officials say the government will make less use of in the future. 

The Government Printing Office did not return inquires from FierceGovernmentIT on how OMB's focus on cutting publication costs would affect the agency. In July, House appropriators suggested GPO could be privatized, since it already contracts out more than 90 percent of its printing requisitions. The House legislative branch appropriations report directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct a feasibility study over whether the General Services Administration could take over printing duties for the executive branch.

Other efficiency efforts were outlined during the briefing by Health and Human Services and Homeland Security Department officials. Much like DOL, HHS is ramping up auditing efforts in order to find savings. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has had some success in lowering improper payments through its pilot of the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Program. CMS announced it will roll out Medicare RAC and now Medicaid RAC in full force.

"Over the next 5 years, we estimate we could recover $2.1 billion from Medicaid," said the CMS official.

For more:
- see a related post on the White House blog 
- see FierceHealthFinance's coverage of the CMS effort

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