The federal watchdog for the U.S. health department generated $5.56 billion in expected recoveries and projected savings over six months and barred 1,212 individuals and companies from federal programs, it said on Monday, even as its overall enforcement activity fell to the lowest level in two years.

Enforcement Actions Drop

The decline complicates the Trump administration’s portrayal of an unprecedented crackdown on healthcare fraud. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, in a semiannual report to Congress covering October through March, said it returned $12.70 for every dollar it spent.

The headline figure was anchored by a handful of large cases, including a 15-year prison sentence for a telemedicine software executive behind a $1 billion scheme and $674 million in settlements with Kaiser Permanente affiliates and CVS Health’s Aetna over inflated Medicare Advantage billing.

Scoring Methodology Shifts

The OIG’s headline figure is complicated by a change in how the office keeps score. The volatile “total monetary impact” measure, which folds in projected savings alongside money actually ordered repaid, was introduced in early 2025, when Trump took office, and has swung from $16.61 billion to $2.43 billion to the current $5.56 billion.

The report lands as Vice President JD Vance, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare chief Mehmet Oz promote what the White House has called an “unrelenting” war on fraud. The OIG says it now coordinates with a new Vance-led White House fraud task force.

Autism Services Scrutinized

Autism services have become a flashpoint. Vance and Oz have repeatedly cited autism-related Medicaid spending as evidence of rampant fraud, but OIG’s audits describe something narrower. Across four states: Indiana, Wisconsin, Maine, and Colorado, the OIG found hundreds of millions in improper and potentially improper payments for applied behavior analysis therapy.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.