based on our audit work and recommendations, ssa now matches and corroborate payment records with number holder records every month, and age exchanges data with hhs to identify deceased beneficiaries based on their enrollment but non-usage of medicare. these initiatives have improved ssas ability to process benefit terminations due death, recover overpayments, and refer allegations of deceased payee fraud to our office. last year we investigated over 600 people for deceased payee fraud. these are cases of individuals who conceal someone's death to ill illegally collect social security benefits. criminal convictions of 150 people and $5 million in officers, restitutions and projected savings in one example, a woman collected her mother's social security and federal civil service benefit ford 35 years after her mother died. ssa identified the case through the medicare nonutallization project. last year the woman pled guilty to government theft and was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. the was ordered to repay $350,000 to the ssa and opm. this is a high investigative priority. cases of deceased payee fraud can lead to significant government re

february 26th of 2015 the director of o & b sent letters to agency heads for four organizations, dol, hhs ssa and treasury that have the largest priority programs. this direction requires the early implementation of the appendix requirements that i just mentioned by april 30th of this year many the direction further requires that each agency conduct the following analysis and corrective action plan for each program in question. two, review new categories for reporting improper payments, and three, provide analysis linking the agency efforts and establishing internal controls to the internal controls that they have for improper payments. under this administration, we have focused on the increased use of technology and sharing data to address improper payments. the effective use of data analystics provides insight into the methods and improving the performance and decision making capability. examples of agencies currently using data analytics to prevent improper payments -- ool's integrity center for excellence. improper payments remains a high priority to this administration progress has been