Washington -- Improper payments for health care made up a large portion of the $98 billion the federal government spent inappropriately in fiscal 2009. This total was an increase of $26 billion over the previous year, according to a report issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The Nov. 17 report concluded that Medicare fee for service improperly spent $24 billion in fiscal 2009, a rate equivalent to 7.8% of total outlays, and Medicaid improperly spent $18 billion, a rate of 9.6%. Medicare Advantage improperly spent $12 billion in 2009, a rate of 15.4% of total outlays on the private plans.

The Medicare fee-for-service error rate was just 3.6% in 2008.

The Dept. of Health and Human Services attributed some of the stark increase in improper payments to a new, more rigorous method of calculating error rates, in keeping with President Obama's stated commitment to reducing fraud and waste.

"Through a more stringent review of Medicare claims, we've been able to establish a more complete accounting of errors, enabling the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to take more actionable steps to further reduce the error rate and identify abusive or potentially fraudulent actions before they become problems," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

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