How robotic process automation helped inspectors general tackle fraud
ICF recently achieved Silver Partner status with UiPath. We’re excited to share our expertise, growing practice, and partnership.
Federal inspectors general (IGs) regularly conduct technical audits that can often be labor intensive. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, one IG in particular faced an increased need for fraud investigations and audits to ensure compliance with COVID-19 protocols and funding use.
While the client typically uses technology to minimize oversight, an increase in health spending, site evaluations, and audits—due to COVID-19—required the agency to pivot and leverage new technology to keep pace.
Our client needed to be able to detect potentially fraudulent use of funds from the CARES Act and subsequent COVID-19 relief bills. They sought a solution to quickly collect data from site inspections of nursing homes and emergency medical service providers to ensure compliance with COVID-19 protocols.
Using UiPath’s robotic process automation (RPA) technology, we partnered with our client to prototype an effective data collection and fraud detection solution in record time. The RPA prototype detects potential COVID-19 funds fraud on social media, alerting investigators and auditors to prioritize those instances. The use of the RPA technology was successful in identifying incidences of COVID-19 fraud and “saved our workers many hours,” according to our IG client.
Tasks that are repetitive, labor-intensive, and occur across multiple systems are prime candidates for RPA, allowing organizations to create further efficiencies through physical or virtual “robots” that can support human-led functions.
Insights collected from the RPA solution also allowed our client’s IT leadership to make informed decisions on how to proceed with the increased project investment.
Learn more about how federal IGs are using technology to adapt to COVID-specific challenges in this article by MeriTalk.
