Michigan OIG details Bridge Card fraud detection, urges state funding for chip cards

Stacy Sampson, Inspector General for Health and Human Services, told the Michigan House Oversight Committee on State and Local Public Assistance Programs that her office uses data analytics, interagency matches and criminal referrals to detect and deter fraud in Bridge Card (SNAP/Food Assistance Program) benefits.

"More than half of our investigations come from data analytics," Sampson said, summarizing the Office of Inspector General's approach to identifying suspicious applications, cloned terminals and trafficking schemes.

The nut of the presentation: Michigan's public assistance programs are large and thus attractive to organized fraud. Sampson noted Medicaid enrollments of about 4,000,000 beneficiaries and a Medicaid budget near $24,000,000,000; she said the Food Assistance Program (FAP) had about 2,000,000 enrolled recipients and a roughly $3,200,000,000 budget. Last year, the OIG performed nearly 17,000 public assistance application investigations that the office says produced $81,000,000 in cost avoidance.

Sampson described multiple investigative tools and results. She said the office uses the federal Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS) to match recipients across states; PARIS matches drove nearly $20,000,000…