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Tune in Thursday, June 11 at 2:00 PM EDT
Federal healthcare systems are under increasing pressure to do more than deliver care. They are also responsible for managing risk at an enormous scale. Billions of dollars are lost each year to fraud, waste and abuse, yet in many cases, the cost of investigating and recovering improper payments exceeds the value of the claims themselves. This has led to a persistent “pay and chase” model, where questionable claims are paid first and only reviewed later, if at all. With increased scrutiny from oversight bodies and initiatives like the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, agencies are under pressure to rethink this approach. The challenge moved beyond simply identifying fraud to doing so early enough, and efficiently enough, to make intervention worthwhile.
In this webcast, we’ll explore how federal healthcare leaders are shifting fraud detection closer to the point of payment by rethinking data architectures and distributing decision-making. We’ll discuss how AI and edge computing can help agencies move from retrospective review to real-time risk assessment, reducing improper payments while lowering the cost of enforcement. The conversation will focus on how bringing intelligence to where decisions are made can strengthen program integrity without slowing down care delivery.
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Speakers
Cheryl L. Mason
Inspector General
Veteran Affairs
Cheryl L. Mason
Inspector General
Veteran Affairs
The Honorable Cheryl L. Mason was confirmed by the Senate as the Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on July 31, 2025. She was sworn in on August 4, 2025.
Inspector General Mason leads more than 900 agents/ investigators, inspectors, auditors, healthcare professionals, data analysts, attorneys, and other professionals across the nation who collaborate to carry out the OIG’s mission of conducting impactful independent oversight of VA and serve veterans and their families. Through her leadership, the OIG sets the direction for investigations to prevent and detect fraud and other criminal activity, waste, abuse, and gross mismanagement, and hold individuals responsible for their misconduct.
Inspector General Mason and her staff are dedicated to issuing fact- and evidencedriven reports with recommendations that promote efficiency and effectiveness in VA operations and programs to help VA deliver the highest-quality health care, benefits, and services to veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors.
Previously, Inspector General Mason had a distinguished career of dedicated federal service at the VA, Department of Defense, and Federal Labor Relations Authority, in addition to private law practice. Her accomplishments include establishing an educational program for servicemembers and their families in Germany, managing a diverse range of US Air Forces in Europe-support programs encompassing contracts, personnel, budget, and IT, and spearheading a largescale complex legal operation as the Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (the Board). As Chairman of the Board from 2017–2022, she led a team of approximately 1,200 personnel to meet the mission of conducting hearings and deciding appeals for veterans and their families. Under her leadership, the Board reduced the number of legacy claims and appeals from more than 472,000 to 96,000, implemented the Appeals Modernization Act, championed technological innovation, and drove streamlined processes.
Inspector General Mason also served as a military spouse employment and engagement champion for the federal government and as an ambassador of the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End the National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS). Ms. Mason is also an award-winning author.
Inspector General Mason earned her bachelor of arts in political science and psychology from Ohio Northern University and a juris doctor from Creighton University School of Law. She is the spouse of a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel and daughter of a World War II US Navy veteran.
Ben Cushing
Senior Principal Chief Architect, Health & Life Sciences
Red Hat
Ben Cushing
Senior Principal Chief Architect, Health & Life Sciences
Red Hat
For two decades, Ben Cushing has been a leader in emerging technology solutions across multiple industries and is committed to radical innovation in healthcare. Before joining Red Hat, he served as the Chief Technology Officer for MDLogix, a behavioral health IT firm supporting Johns Hopkins Medicine. There he architected and brought to market a behavioural health cloud platform for use with employer, healthcare, and education markets.
In addition to supporting analytics and operations at the National Institutes of Health for 6 years, Cushing had the opportunity to practice a scaled agile framework with Accenture where he led the technical architecture and design for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Management Platform, an industry leading Health Management and Care Coordination platform serving 9 million patients.
His tenure at Accenture began with the acquisition of Agilex, where he designed LSI solutions, developed systems to automate the Post-9/11 GI bill, and supported in-theater data collection and analytics tools. While at Agilex, Ben architected and led the development of a mobile Software Development Kit, still in use today by the VA to produce more than 60 applications.