PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Medicare and Medicaid fraud were at the top of the agenda today at the sixth annual regional Health Care Fraud Prevention Summit, at the University of the Sciences, in West Philadelphia.

The federal government is gaining ground in the battle against people who commit health care fraud, recovering nearly $8 billion over the past two years, attorney general Eric Holder (above) told the forum.

Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius (seated in photo) said that the federal government will begin using high technology algorithms and more to fight fraud.

She describes it as a modeling system that can predict fraud by patterns. And she says it can prevent bad Medicare claims from being paid.

“So just in nine days in one geographic area, we identified 20 providers who were the potentially the worst of the worst,” Sebelius said.  “They, in and of themselves, just in this one area, accounted for about 30 million dollars in annual Medicare claims.”

Sebelius says the initiative will be up and running nationwide in about two weeks.

Reported by Kim Glovas, KYW Newsradio 1060