FICO scores come to insurance claims

Claim Denied? Fraud Score May Be to Blame at SmartMoney.com:

The political pressure to reduce health-care costs is forcing many health-insurance companies to reconsider how they detect and combat fraud . . .
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Now, insurers are increasingly focusing on a new method to fight fraud that they say is more effective and less expensive. They’re trying to detect fraud before paying a claim, says Louis Saccoccio, the executive director of NHCAA.

How do they do that? The same way credit card companies try to predict the risk that a consumer will fail to pay their bills: They analyze huge databases of information to generate numeric scores. Before a claim is approved, it is scored for the likelihood that it is fraudulent. The higher the score, the bigger its risk for fraud, waste or abuse.

The technology has been in the making for the past five to ten years, but health care reform has made it a more sought-after product by companies eager to show they are doing all they can to cut costs.

I suppose it should be no surprise that this is increasingly the form that "efficiency" and "combating health care fraud" take. The use of credit-score like data processing and algorithms is a logical extension. It's chilling, but to be expected.