A Year of Success in the Midwest

IntegriGuard Celebrates Its First Year with Exceptional Results and Dynamic Growth

April 1, 2004
Contact: Diana Parker
415.677.2122
dlparker@caqio.sdps.org

OMAHA, NE. April 1, 2004 — IntegriGuard, LLC, a company dedicated to fighting healthcare fraud, abuse, inefficiency, and waste, today announced its one-year anniversary as an independent entity.

“We are thrilled to celebrate our first anniversary and enthusiastically embrace our future making a difference in the integrity and viability of our nation’s healthcare system,” said Peg Stessman, President, IntegriGuard, LLC. “Our exceptional staff’s strength, creativity, dedication, and performance in detecting as well as preventing unacceptable practices in the Medicare program is something we are very proud of,” she added.

Over the past year, IntegriGuard’s work has helped support the:

Recovery of more than $88 million in improper payments to healthcare providers,
Nine criminal indictments; and
Resolution of more than 200,000 Medicare beneficiary status changes, releasing more than $80 million in payments to managed care organizations.

Over the past year, IntegriGuard has:

Tripled in size, creating 36 new jobs in Omaha and 12 new jobs Topeka, Kansas,
Moved into a new 20,000 square foot headquarters office in Omaha,
Become International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Certified; and
Applied for accreditation through URAC.

Formerly a division, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lumetra, a California-based non-profit organization committed to improving the quality, safety, and integrity of healthcare, IntegriGuard (www.integriguard.org) is one of 12 federally-designated Program Safeguard Contractors (PSC) for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare Integrity Program (MIP) and one of eight companies awarded a Medicare Managed Care Program Integrity Contract (MMC-PIC).

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Omaha, Nebraska-based IntegriGuard was formed in 1999 as a national division of Lumetra, California's Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for Medicare, and was established as an independent entity in April 2003. IntegriGuard is currently one of 12 Program Safeguard Contractors in the nation. For more information, visit IntegriGuard on the Web at www.integriguard.org.