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 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.
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!
Questions?
Please contact chilicookoff@cms.hhs.gov.
CMS reserves the right to change or update this notice at any time.
Page Last Modified:
12/01/2025 08:43 AM