Updated December 15, 2025
Milliman (Paul Houchens, Colin Gray, Prasenjit Singh, Adam Hearn, and Lukasz Chmura) is the winner.
Milliman is among the world’s largest independent actuarial and consulting firms. Through consulting practices in employee benefits, healthcare, investment, life insurance and financial services, and property & casualty/general insurance, Milliman serves the full spectrum of business, financial, government, union, education, and nonprofit organizations.
Said Dr.Oz as part of the announcement – “Congratulations to our Chili Cook-off winner Milliman, Inc! You had the best recipe to help us fight fraud, and we’re looking forward to implementing the incredible ideas your team came up with.
Thank you to all our participants who joined the competition to help us think of new, innovative ways to crush fraud, and protect taxpayer dollars.”
Updated November 25, 2025
CMS announces 10 who make Phase 2 cut on Crushing Fraud Chili Cook-Off Competition
Said CMS Health care policy, fraud and abuse expert Kimberly Brandt – “Excited to announce the CMS Chili Cook Off finalists!! Congrats to them and a huge thanks to all who participated!! Excited to announce the winner on December 15!!!”
10 firms have been announced as being selected by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as finalists for the CMS “Chili Cookoff”.
CMS invited research proposals from all interested parties. After reviewing submissions, the following teams were selected as finalists and advanced to Phase 2:
Finalist Teams & Team Members:
- Abt: TJ Shumard, Greg Dupier, George Conclough, and Matthew Sweeney
- Amida: Afsin Ustundag, Manish Mithaiwala, and Benno Lee
- basys.ai: Amber Nigam, Arpan Saxena, Srinidhi Moodalagiri, Caleb Yeung, and Alaa Youssef
- CORMAC: Dominic Raj, Arunachalam Chidambaram, Steven Anderson, Kartik J Chaurasiya, and Jianhong Zhu
- Hilltop Institute: Morgan Henderson, Leigh Goetschius, Fei Han, Christine Gill, and James Clavin
- KPMG: Ning Wang, Scott McAllister, Ronald Hagan, Michael Brutz, and Devansh Patel
- Milliman: Paul Houchens, Colin Gray, Prasenjit Singh, Adam Hearn, and Lukasz Chmura
- MindPetal: Chris Young, Josh Mosier, Caden Zonnefeld, Meredith Canova, and Aneil Nayak
- Stanford & UCSF: Md Enamul Haque, Luay Abdelijaber, and Armin Afshar
- Visual Connections: Frederick Deese, Maurice Thomas, Tobi Pulley, and Dani Lobaton
Phase 2 – Competition
Finalists received access to Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) Hospice, Part B, and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) claims data via CMS’ Limited Data Sets. Participants will apply their proposed AI/ML techniques to the data and submit a summary of their findings, as well as proposed scalable analytic and policy solutions. CMS will select and publicly announce the challenge winner.
Updated October 20, 2025
Phase 1 of the Crushing Fraud Chili Cook-Off Competition has concluded. On October 20, 2025, all participants who submitted entries for Phase 1 were notified via email regarding their selection status for Phase 2.
For selected finalists, Phase 2 will begin on October 30, 2025. See here for further information about the challenge.
Added August 19, 2025
CMS launches Crushing Fraud Chili Cook-Off Competition
CMS is excited to announce the Crushing Fraud Chili Cook-Off Competition – a market-based research challenge aimed at harnessing explainable artificial intelligence (AI), specifically machine learning (ML) models, to detect anomalies and trends in Medicare claims data that can be translated into novel indicators of fraud. This challenge also seeks innovative, scalable technologies that reduce labor-intensive processes while keeping humans meaningfully in the loop to ensure effective oversight and interoperability.
About the Challenge
The Chili Cook-Off will unfold in two phases.
Phase 1 – Proposed Technology Development
CMS will invite research proposals from all interested parties. After reviewing submissions, 10 teams will be selected to advance to Phase 2.
Phase 2 – Competition
Finalists will receive access to Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) Hospice, Part B, and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) claims data via CMS’ Limited Data Sets. Participants will apply their proposed AI/ML techniques to the data and submit a summary of their findings, as well as proposed scalable analytic and policy solutions. CMS will select and publicly announce the challenge winner.
Timeline
Phase 1
August 19, 2025 – Proposal submissions open, 12:00 AM ET
September 19, 2025 – Proposal deadline, 11:59 PM ET
October 20, 2025 – Phase 2 participants announced
Phase 2
October 30, 2025 – Data access granted to Phase 2 participants
October 31, 2025 – Phase 2 submissions open, 12:00 AM ET
December 1, 2025 – Final submissions due, 11:59 PM ET
December 15, 2025 – Challenge winner announced
For detailed information on the Chili Cook-Off, see the Chili Cook-Off Challenge.gov posting.
Stay tuned for more updates on the Crushing Fraud Chili Cook-Off Competition and be on the lookout for future Request for Proposals (RFPs) and opportunities to partner with CMS on similar initiatives!
I am glad to see they are on schedule with this. It is surprising with all of the shutdown activity.
I believe MITRE is doing the analysis which means the furloughs did not impact them.
Has CMS posted a final list? Names I have heard are in – KPMG, Abt, UMBC and Amida. Was surprise to hear some of the big names not making the cut.
We showed CMS and Congress- 13 years ago- how to prevent DME fraud and others.