West Virginia Attorney General issued the following announcement on Jan. 20.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s disability fraud partnership generated nearly $6 million in savings during the most recent year, a marked rebound from coronavirus shutdowns that impacted investigations over the last two years.
The partnership generated $5,854,619 in projected savings for the state and federal governments from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021. Total savings now exceed $30,495,071 since the partnership’s inception in West Virginia.
“We continue our work to root out fraud in order to yield significant savings for the Mountain State,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “Disability fraud is particularly disturbing. It takes from those who are unable to provide for themselves and jeopardizes the stability of Social Security. We must keep up our fight to protect those who legitimately rely upon such assistance.”
The Cooperative Disability Investigations Unit, a partnership with the Social Security Administration, investigates suspicious or questionable disability claims. It investigates beneficiaries, claimants and any third parties who facilitate fraud.
The unit’s findings help disability examiners make informed decisions and ensure payment accuracy while also equipping state and federal prosecutors with the facts needed to secure a conviction. In turn, this generates significant savings for taxpayers.
CDI Units help resolve questions of potential fraud, in many instances before benefits are ever paid. The Attorney General’s Office joined the program in December 2015, making it a first-of-its-kind unit for West Virginia.
The state’s unit joins two investigators and an analyst from the Attorney General’s Office with representatives from SSA, its Office of the Inspector General and the state’s Disability Determination Section.
Nationally, the CDI program is one of the most successful anti-fraud initiatives with regard to federal disability programs. It operates 46 units covering 40 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, in addition to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Members of the public should report suspected disability fraud to the Social Security Fraud Hotline at https://oig.ssa.gov/report; send U.S. Mail to PO Box 17785, Baltimore, MD 21235; fax (410) 597-0118; or call (800) 269-0271 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
Original source can be found here.