In Fiscal Year 2018, agencies not verifying benefit recipients’ eligibility led to $38 billion of improper payments. Aligning with the PMA, this Challenge sought fresh ideas for eligibility verification from a diverse, nationwide group of contributors.
MITRE Challenge–Strengthening Eligibility Verification for Federal Benefit Programs
In Fiscal Year 2018, federal improper payments totaled $151 billion, nearly $38 billion of which occurred because agencies did not verify with certainty that the recipients were eligible for benefits. In alignment with the President’s Management Agenda, the MITRE Corporation launched this Challenge to gather fresh ideas for eligibility verification from a diverse, nationwide group of contributors. The Challenge featured a scenario with a hypothetical federal agency, a hypothetical benefits program, and real-world program eligibility characteristics that needed to be verified. Participants were required to create a conceptual framework that could enable effective eligibility verification of these characteristics. The Challenge winner (Team SAP Regulated Industries Innovators) and finalists (Team Converus / AML Partners, Team Proper Bobcats, and Team SAS) presented concepts that have the potential to significantly reduce improper payments by better verifying both the initial eligibility of applicants for, and the ongoing eligibility of participants in, benefit programs.