The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is urging financial institutions to be vigilant about fraud schemes targeting government health care benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The new FinCEN’s Advisory provides financial institutions with an overview of how fraudsters, organized crime groups, and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are targeting government health care benefit programs. Further, it highlights money laundering typologies and red flag indicators to help financial institutions identify and report suspicious activity. The advisory strongly encourages financial institutions to voluntarily report suspicious activity to FinCEN and immediately notify law enforcement of such activity.
“President Trump has been clear that Americans have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being used to commit fraud,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury will continue to find and disrupt fraud schemes wherever they exist, and we will work with our law enforcement partners to hold perpetrators to account.”
Last year, financial institutions filed 20 percent more suspicious activity reports related to health care than they did in 2024. This reporting, however, likely represents only a small fraction of the illicit activity connected to health care fraud in the United States.
The Treasury will pay eligible whistleblowers for actionable tips related to fraud, money laundering, sanctions violations, and certain other national security laws. Awards to eligible whistleblowers will range from 10 to 30 percent of monetary penalties resulting from qualifying enforcement actions. Payments will be funded by penalties collected under the Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act from actions brought by Treasury and the Department of Justice.
FinCEN launched a new dedicated webpage to confidentially accept whistleblower tips on fraud, money laundering, and sanctions violations. Financial institutions and the public are encouraged to report any tips or complaints about potential fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement involving HHS programs to HHS-OIG. Victims of cyber-enabled health care fraud schemes should file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center or file a report with their nearest FBI field office.