The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a partnership  to share data, data analytics tools and best practices for identifying and preventing fraud, waste and abuse.

Officials said the partnership aims to leverage the enforcement efforts used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and apply them to veterans’ programs.

“The VA-HHS alliance represents the latest example of VA’s commitment to find partners to assist with identifying new and innovative ways to seek out fraud, waste and abuse and ensure every tax dollar given to VA supports Veterans,” said VA Secretary Dr. David J. Shulkin.

CMS estimates that its program integrity activities saved Medicare operations $17 billion in fiscal year 2015. VA officials said they plan to capitalize on CMS’s advancements in analytics. In November, VA invited industry experts to provide information on the latest commercial sector tools and techniques to enhance VA’s fraud detection capabilities and plans to convene the group again in April to demonstrate their capabilities for detecting and preventing fraud, waste and abuse and recovering improper payments.