Treasury Targets Healthcare Fraud With Proposed Whistleblower Payments

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is seeking assistance from financial institutions as it combats fraud schemes that target Medicare, Medicaid and other government health benefit programs.

The agency issued an advisory that highlights these schemes and encourages financial institutions to voluntarily report suspicious activity to FinCEN and law enforcement, and issued a proposed rule that would pay eligible whistleblowers who provide FinCEN with information about potential violations, the Treasury Department said in a Monday (March 30) press release.

“President Trump has been clear that Americans have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being used to commit fraud,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury will continue to find and disrupt fraud schemes wherever they exist, and we will work with our law enforcement partners to hold perpetrators to account.”

In its advisory, FinCEN highlights how transnational criminal organizations exploit federal and state health care benefit programs by filing fraudulent claims for reimbursement. In some cases, these schemes are facilitated by complicit insiders at financial institutions, according to the release.

The proposed rule to compensate whistleblowers would apply to actionable tips related to fraud, money laundering, sanctions violations and certain other national security laws. The agency proposes procedures for this reporting, eligibility criteria for issuing awards and protections for whistleblowers, per the release.

While FinCEN’s whistleblower program is currently accepting tips, the proposed rule will fully implement the statutes that codified the program, according to another press release issued Monday by the Treasury Department.

“At Treasury, we follow the money, and we strongly encourage individuals to come forward with credible tips to help safeguard our financial system,” Bessent said in the release.

FinCEN launched a dedicated webpage to confidentially accept whistleblower tips on fraud, money laundering and sanctions violations in February. The agency encourages whistleblowers to provide detailed, specific documentation to support their claims, it said in a Feb. 13 press release announcing the new webpage.

The Treasury Department said in January that it is investigating “rampant benefits fraud” in Minnesota and that complex fraud rings in the state had stolen billions of dollars from state programs.