The county, which includes the city of Syracuse, will pay about US$90 million in Medicaid costs this year. Officials used business intelligence and analytics tools to identify patients whose prescription totals warranted investigation for attempting to commit fraud, said Steve Morgan, the county's executive deputy commissioner of social services.

The county began using the tools in September as part of an effort to stem Medicaid fraud, he said.

Likewise, officials in Nassau County on New York's Long Island have launched two multimillion-dollar investigations based on data compiled using BI tools to identify potential Medicaid fraud by county residents.

Because the investigations are ongoing, Nassau County officials declined to provide more details on the suspected fraud. But they did say that the county has accumulated millions of dollars in savings since 2003, when it started using BI tools to analyze claims data.

Several counties in New York -- home to the one of the nation's largest Medicaid populations -- are turning to BI tools to help cull through millions of claims to identify potential cases of fraud and misuse, said Stephen Acquario, executive director of the Albany-based New York State Association of Counties.