CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s disability fraud partnership generated more than $1.8 million in savings in the first quarter of 2020.
The three-month tally pushes the unit’s total projected savings to more than $22.25 million for state and federal governments since its inception in West Virginia.
“We must change the culture of fraud and abuse,” Morrisey said. “No one should be allowed to cheat this crucial safety net, particularly when others have legitimate disability claims.”
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 party 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 1-800-269-0271 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday.
