September 2018 Monthly Member Bulletin
Executive Director’s Corner
Medicare Smart Card Bill Passes House Vote – Finally!
Last week, something happened in Washington, D.C. that was more than 10 years in the planning. The House of Representatives passed the Medicare Common Access Card Act, now known as Fighting Fraud to Protect Care for Seniors – HR.6099. The bill calls for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to conduct three regional pilot programs to evaluate the use of smart cards in Medicare to prevent fraud.
Back in 2010, Peter Roskam, a Republican congressman from Illinois, offered a smart solution to a huge fraud problem. Roskam, a former personal injury lawyer who sits on the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, believed Medicare should follow the lead of another industry that had a strong record of rooting out fraud – the credit card industry. Ironically, this was two years before the credit card industry announced its plans to fight fraud by issuing nearly 1 billion smart cards in the U.S.
This bill had been hanging around since 2011, with neither political party willing to challenge CMS, which opposed any new Medicare ID technology. Waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid depletes our treasury, and also forces federal and state authorities to spend tens of millions of dollars every year in law enforcement and prosecution costs by dealing with the crime after the fact rather than preventing it.
Smart cards provide the ability to stop the fraud before it happens by verifying and authenticating valid Medicare and Medicaid users at the time of the transaction. They’re not only a globally recognized tool to help eliminate medical and financial fraud, but a trusted tool of the federal government in assuring identity across a number of critical applications. If CMS were to implement a smart card technology solution – such as described in this bill – it would have the potential to save American taxpayers over half of the estimated $60 billion per year cost of fraud. With over 59 million Medicare beneficiaries, that comes out to approximately $1,000 of fraud per recipient per year. Meanwhile, thanks to a large increase in production volume and other cost factors affecting the smart card industry, the cost of a smart Medicare card is down by at least 50% from 2011.
Authentication of the cardholder as the insured party reduces medical fraud by eliminating card swapping, tampering, and cloning. It can support verification of benefits eligibility at the point of service, ensuring that treatment is restricted to covered services and prescriptions. Smart healthcare cards can also address provider fraud by providing strong authentication of the healthcare provider identity when submitting a claim and by linking treatments with verified patient encounters. This process of verification – authenticating providers authorized to deliver services and bill Medicare, ensuring beneficiaries are authorized to receive those services, and verifying medical suppliers and vendors – will effectively remove much of the fraud that’s been happening.
The path to seeing this bill becoming law is not guaranteed since it must pass the Senate and be signed by the president. For now, we celebrate and hope that common sense and the urgent need to address waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare and Medicaid system will prevail.
Webinar This Week: Identity on a Mobile Device – Healthcare, Banking and Transportation Use Cases
The Identity Council is hosting a webinar, Identity on a Mobile Device: Healthcare, Banking and Transportation Use Cases, on Thurs., Sept. 20, at 2pm ET/11am PT. The webinar is the third in the Council’s series reviewing how mobile identity credentials are used in a variety of use cases.
The webinar will discuss:
- The Secure Technology Alliance’s mobile identity assessment initiative
- Challenges with patient identity in healthcare and the use of mobile identity to help streamline patient experiences and benefit the healthcare provider by reducing duplicate records, increasing patient payments and ensuring patient data availability
- Use of mobile devices to help the transit industry improve customer experience and service efficiency and prevent fraud by enabling travelers to plan, book and pay for service seamlessly via mobile device
- The Canadian digital identity network, Verified.Me, that was formed to provide security, convenience and speed to consumers when verifying information to services that require a high level of trust in identity verification and authentication
Speakers include: Jeffrey Fountaine, Ingenico Group; Jerry Kane, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA); Judy Keator, SecureKey Technologies; Tom Lockwood, NextgenID; Randy Vanderhoof, Secure Technology Alliance.
Upcoming October 11th Webinar: IoT Security – Mitigating Security Risks in Secure Connected Environments
The IoT Security Council is hosting a webinar, IoT Security: Mitigating Security Risks in Secure Connected Environments, on Thurs., Oct. 11, at 2pm ET/11am PT.
The webinar will discuss:
- The biggest security risks facing IoT implementations today
- Security considerations for each stage in the IoT device life cycle
- Practical mitigation approaches and technologies to improve security and privacy
- Use cases that describe how these approaches are being adopted in the industrial, financial and automotive industries
Webinar speakers include: Steve Hanna, Infineon Technologies; Josh Jabs, Entrust Datacard; John Neal, NXP Semiconductors; Sri Ramachandran, G+D Mobile Security; Randy Vanderhoof, Secure Technology Alliance.
Don’t Miss Event: Securing Digital ID 2018 Conference
“Securing Digital ID 2018,” a new event from the Alliance, is scheduled for Dec. 4-5 in Alexandria, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. Make sure you’ve registered for this timely event.
The meeting will feature presentations and panel discussions on digital identity solutions and authentication technologies, business challenges balancing security and convenience, policies that help guide common practice, and interoperability standards. There will also be opportunities to network with security experts and cybersecurity integrators already using smart identity security solutions.
Register, and make your travel plans today to ensure your spot.
Follow the Alliance on Social Media
The Secure Technology Alliance has enhanced its presence on social media with robust platforms on Twitter and LinkedIn. Here are some ways you can interact with the organization: