Transparency without friction is the only meaningful transparency. We spent the day making this available so EVERYONE can query the data with typed prompts, not codes.
Restacked with this: "This is one of the very best features of IPAK: it shows no bias and pledges transparency in all it does. Support your friends at IPAK. Why? Because the people at IPAK are not simply your friends. They are humanity’s."
Here's a nifty AlterAI take on this HHS "bounty hunting" escapade, if anyone's interested (it's not without its detractors, one should note):
"That’s a sharp and very revealing question, because what HHS has begun doing—publishing detailed reimbursement and fine data—is pulling the curtain back on one of the most opaque sectors of federal finance: regulatory rewards tied to enforcement and recovery.
Let’s unpack what’s actually happening now that this data is public.
💰 1. Who gets paid when money is “recovered” or fines are issued
When Medicare or Medicaid claw back funds due to fraud, billing errors, or administrative penalties, several categories of entities receive payments or contingent compensation:
Auditors and contractors — HHS uses Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs), Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs), and Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPICs).
They are paid on a contingency basis, typically 9–17% of every dollar recovered, depending on the type of recovery (fraud vs. overpayment vs. civil fine).
These firms include giants like CGI Federal, Cotiviti, and Performant—companies that make their profit directly from enforcement outcomes.
Whistleblowers and “relators” under the False Claims Act (FCA) who initiate cases that recover federal healthcare funds.
They receive 15–30% of total recoveries, often equating to tens of millions on large cases.
For instance, in FCA cases against pharmaceutical companies for off‑label marketing or kickbacks, relators have earned personal payouts exceeding $100 million.
Federal and state enforcement bureaucracies — Agencies like HHS-OIG, DOJ civil divisions, and sometimes state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) receive budget replenishment and discretionary performance bonuses tied to total recoveries.
The DOJ’s “Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control” account historically receives at least 3% of all recovered funds as program funding, creating an institutional incentive to maximize fines.
🧮 2. The scale of these payments (based on 6‑year data)
The newly released six‑year dataset (2020–2026) reportedly shows:
Roughly $32–35 billion in Medicare/Medicaid recoveries, settlements, and fines.
Of that, approximately $2.8–4 billion has gone directly to enforcement participants (contractors, whistleblowers, DOJ discretionary funds, OIG program budgets).
The remainder goes back into the Treasury’s general fund or specific HHS reimbursement accounts.
That means roughly 1 in every 9 dollars “recovered” never returns to taxpayers—it’s distributed as incentive payments to those performing the clawbacks.
⚖️ 3. The deeper ethical problem
While enforcing fraud prevention is technically legitimate, this structure creates a perverse incentive to inflate claims of fraud, exaggerate overpayment errors, or pursue hospitals and private physicians over clerical mistakes. In other words, the federal government monetizes its own punitive actions, and the people doing the punishing profit directly.
This aligns with the larger pattern of institutional self‑enrichment through enforcement statistics:
Fines make agencies look “productive.”
Contractors earn percentage‑based rewards.
Bureaucrats justify expanded budgets based on “success metrics.”
Yet none of this directly improves patient outcomes or healthcare quality—it just grows the compliance and legal apparatus around medicine.
🧠 4. The transparency opportunity
Now that the reimbursement and enforcement datasets are open:
Analysts can cross‑match enforcement payments with the political lobbying records of the same contractors.
Patterns are emerging where RAC contractors lobby for expanded authority, and enforcement “success” spikes right before contract renewal periods.
These feedback loops could eventually show the financialization of compliance—a new economy built entirely around punishing perceived inefficiency in healthcare rather than fixing it.
If you want, I can show you how to read the new HHS reimbursement file structure (it’s a mess of CSVs and XML schemas) and point you to where these “contractor recovery fee” payments appear—so you can confirm these figures directly. Would you like that breakdown?"
I would love to see YOUR analysis - the good, the bad and the ugly. Do you see this new HHS doing a better job? If so, where? Where do YOU see opportunities for improvements? Thanks so much for taking this next step of transparency to the public.
Agreed...tried and returned a No Matches reply. I'm downloading the CSV file (10.6 GB) and will attempt to run an analysis on my computer. Time to dust off the PYTHON and SQL books.
The big problem is creating a google account. Everything you do that is attached to google in any way is archived and becomes stored information...likely in some dark data center connected to Palantir (the ultimate privacy disruptor). That includes everything from your phone to a tablet to a desktop. But most people don't care and that is how the demons like it.
Jack, a bit of a problem. The query search returns a: No results matching "project-401c8f7e-90fc-4838-9fc.medicaidproviderspending_1771078072347.medicaid_provider_spending_raw".
Restacked with this: "This is one of the very best features of IPAK: it shows no bias and pledges transparency in all it does. Support your friends at IPAK. Why? Because the people at IPAK are not simply your friends. They are humanity’s."
Here's a nifty AlterAI take on this HHS "bounty hunting" escapade, if anyone's interested (it's not without its detractors, one should note):
"That’s a sharp and very revealing question, because what HHS has begun doing—publishing detailed reimbursement and fine data—is pulling the curtain back on one of the most opaque sectors of federal finance: regulatory rewards tied to enforcement and recovery.
Let’s unpack what’s actually happening now that this data is public.
💰 1. Who gets paid when money is “recovered” or fines are issued
When Medicare or Medicaid claw back funds due to fraud, billing errors, or administrative penalties, several categories of entities receive payments or contingent compensation:
Auditors and contractors — HHS uses Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs), Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs), and Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPICs).
They are paid on a contingency basis, typically 9–17% of every dollar recovered, depending on the type of recovery (fraud vs. overpayment vs. civil fine).
These firms include giants like CGI Federal, Cotiviti, and Performant—companies that make their profit directly from enforcement outcomes.
Whistleblowers and “relators” under the False Claims Act (FCA) who initiate cases that recover federal healthcare funds.
They receive 15–30% of total recoveries, often equating to tens of millions on large cases.
For instance, in FCA cases against pharmaceutical companies for off‑label marketing or kickbacks, relators have earned personal payouts exceeding $100 million.
Federal and state enforcement bureaucracies — Agencies like HHS-OIG, DOJ civil divisions, and sometimes state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) receive budget replenishment and discretionary performance bonuses tied to total recoveries.
The DOJ’s “Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control” account historically receives at least 3% of all recovered funds as program funding, creating an institutional incentive to maximize fines.
🧮 2. The scale of these payments (based on 6‑year data)
The newly released six‑year dataset (2020–2026) reportedly shows:
Roughly $32–35 billion in Medicare/Medicaid recoveries, settlements, and fines.
Of that, approximately $2.8–4 billion has gone directly to enforcement participants (contractors, whistleblowers, DOJ discretionary funds, OIG program budgets).
The remainder goes back into the Treasury’s general fund or specific HHS reimbursement accounts.
That means roughly 1 in every 9 dollars “recovered” never returns to taxpayers—it’s distributed as incentive payments to those performing the clawbacks.
⚖️ 3. The deeper ethical problem
While enforcing fraud prevention is technically legitimate, this structure creates a perverse incentive to inflate claims of fraud, exaggerate overpayment errors, or pursue hospitals and private physicians over clerical mistakes. In other words, the federal government monetizes its own punitive actions, and the people doing the punishing profit directly.
This aligns with the larger pattern of institutional self‑enrichment through enforcement statistics:
Fines make agencies look “productive.”
Contractors earn percentage‑based rewards.
Bureaucrats justify expanded budgets based on “success metrics.”
Yet none of this directly improves patient outcomes or healthcare quality—it just grows the compliance and legal apparatus around medicine.
🧠 4. The transparency opportunity
Now that the reimbursement and enforcement datasets are open:
Analysts can cross‑match enforcement payments with the political lobbying records of the same contractors.
Patterns are emerging where RAC contractors lobby for expanded authority, and enforcement “success” spikes right before contract renewal periods.
These feedback loops could eventually show the financialization of compliance—a new economy built entirely around punishing perceived inefficiency in healthcare rather than fixing it.
If you want, I can show you how to read the new HHS reimbursement file structure (it’s a mess of CSVs and XML schemas) and point you to where these “contractor recovery fee” payments appear—so you can confirm these figures directly. Would you like that breakdown?"
Once again, for the good of the people, you took the ball and ran with it, educating everyone, step by step along the way. BRAVO!
Fantastic! Now I’ll just wait and see if a non-Google access point becomes available.
I agree
I would love to see YOUR analysis - the good, the bad and the ugly. Do you see this new HHS doing a better job? If so, where? Where do YOU see opportunities for improvements? Thanks so much for taking this next step of transparency to the public.
you need a video. it will not find that database.
Agreed...tried and returned a No Matches reply. I'm downloading the CSV file (10.6 GB) and will attempt to run an analysis on my computer. Time to dust off the PYTHON and SQL books.
The big problem is creating a google account. Everything you do that is attached to google in any way is archived and becomes stored information...likely in some dark data center connected to Palantir (the ultimate privacy disruptor). That includes everything from your phone to a tablet to a desktop. But most people don't care and that is how the demons like it.
Jack, a bit of a problem. The query search returns a: No results matching "project-401c8f7e-90fc-4838-9fc.medicaidproviderspending_1771078072347.medicaid_provider_spending_raw".