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Folsom Firm's 'Freebie' for OSHPD Helps Get Bonuses to Nurses

The state agency needed some help in a hurry when it got $25 million from Facebook to give to nurses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Pondera Solutions, a Thomson Reuters company, stepped up and did background checks on 50,000 people in a matter of days.

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When Facebook donated $25 million to be awarded as bonuses to 50,000 California nurses, it seemed like a simple, unfettered act of corporate generosity. But there was a catch: How to vet the recipients to ensure that no one could defraud the system?

California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) administered the “Skilled Nursing Facility Hero Awards,” which were intended to help licensed vocational nurses and certified nurse assistants with their financial responsibilities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic fallout.

But once the mid-April awards were announced and the nurses’ applications for the awards were received, a concern arose.

Greg Loos, president of Folsom-based Pondera Solutions when it was acquired in March by Thomson Reuters (TR) and who’s now TR’s vice president for risk, fraud and compliance, told Techwire in an interview last week how his company got involved.

“They got midway through it,” Loos said, “and they said, ‘Oh, God — we don’t have a way to stop fraud, and what if a bunch of people apply and they’re either not nurses, or they used to be nurses but got disqualified or committed a crime?’ That money goes out the door.”  

Loos said that when OSHPD reached out for help, Pondera used its fraud-detection analytics, coupled with TR’s CLEAR data tools, to start the vetting.

“We did a rapid fraud detection screening on all 50,000 or thereabouts and returned results to them, and they distributed every dollar in the program,” Loos said. “So it was a good marriage for what we do and what they do.”

Loos said Pondera and TR provided the service at no cost.

“Yeah, it was a freebie,” he said. “We’ve been a good partner to California, and California’s been not only a good customer to us, but also a good home for our business. It just seemed like the right thing to do. You can’t look at every situation like a business opportunity. Sometimes in the panic, it’s good to just do something that makes everybody feel good.”

Caryn Otto, Pondera’s director of marketing, said the company was chosen “because we’re local, because we’re vested, and because we have a great reputation at the state.”

“We definitely felt it was the right thing to do,” Loos added. “Caryn’s right — it was probably a great first example in the state of California where we married the Pondera fraud analytics and Special Investigations Unit personnel with Thomson Reuters data."

A spokesman for OSHPD acknowledged the assistance.

“We are grateful to our partners who helped us execute this task,” said agency spokesman Andrew DiLuccia. 

Said Loos: “Our job was to make sure the money went to the people on the front lines who actually deserved it. The reason Thomson Reuters was so beneficial is we were able to turn it around immediately. ... That was Facebook’s intent, to get the money out to the nurses. They didn’t want to delay, and at the same time, OSHPD wanted to make sure it didn’t go to the wrong people” — those nurses who may have had expired licenses or other snags that made them ineligible for the bonuses, or to bad actors who simply wanted to defraud the system and get the cash.

“Thomson didn’t flinch and said, ‘We’ll turn it around lickety-split,’” Loos said. “Had we gone through another vendor … we probably would have had a two- to four-week delay.”

The turnaround was very fast, Otto said, and staffers were readily available for some after-hours and weekend work.

“Nobody had plans, because of COVID,” she said.

“I think we got the (applicant) list on Friday and turned around and had it ready on Tuesday for the client,” she said. “Our team worked all weekend long to be able to deliver the analysis of the data with cross-matching.”

“I think that was the rally cry: Let’s do right by the nurses of California,” Loos said. “When it’s a mission-driven ask, people rise up.”

Dennis Noone is Executive Editor of Industry Insider. He is a career journalist, having worked at small-town newspapers and major metropolitan dailies including USA Today in Washington, D.C.