From fragmented to reliable: 3 ways CLEAR Batch Services streamlines agency workflows

News outlets continue to report on individuals and organizations that have defrauded government programs of millions of dollars, including Medicare, Medicaid, and pandemic-era PPP loans. In some states, candidates have made government-payment fraud a contentious issue in midterm elections.

Government agencies know these challenges well. They face growing pressure to deliver services efficiently and equitably, protect public funds from fraudulent activity, and comply with complex reporting mandates designed to prevent potential problems.

The solution

To meet these objectives, agencies need reliable data about the communities they serve. The crux of the problem is that so much of the available data is outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent. As a result, funds or services may reach the wrong people or not reach the people they’re meant for at all. What’s more, fraudsters can slip through the cracks by using false identities and addresses. All this drives up administrative costs, staff frustration, and taxpayer distrust.

How can agencies better serve the public through their programs while reducing fraud? By following the three chief best practices of boosting and maintaining data quality and reliability: data consolidation, hygiene, and enhancement.

Thomson Reuters CLEAR Batch Services helps agencies put all three practices to work. This technology is rooted in CLEAR, Thomson Reuters’ investigative intelligence platform that accesses comprehensive public records and proprietary data. By incorporating these best practices in data quality, CLEAR Batch Services can improve agency workflows.

Jump to ↓

Best Practice #1: Consolidating duplicate and fragmented records

Best Practice #2: Keeping data clean, current, and consistent

Best practices #3: Filling the gaps with enhanced data

In closing

Best Practice #1: Consolidating duplicate and fragmented records

Agency leaders are well aware that siloed databases and duplicate entries can undermine their employees’ effectiveness. One subject may appear under multiple addresses or variations of names, leading to improper or duplicate payments.

CLEAR Batch Services addresses this issue by linking records of individuals within and across databases and assigning a unique identifier that connects each individual across systems. Besides saving agencies hours of work, this automated capability can surface data patterns suggesting fraudulent activity.

And instead of waiting for a scheduled Batch run, agency caseworkers can use CLEAR Batch Services to verify identities and update records in agency systems as soon as entries are made. This helps prevent errors, duplicates, and fraud from entering agency systems in the first place. Staffers don’t have to spend precious time cleaning up erroneous or incomplete data later.

Best Practice #2: Keeping data clean, current, and consistent

Most agencies are familiar with the idea of data hygiene. This is the ongoing process of finding and fixing data errors and duplication. “Unclean” data can bog down administrative work when agencies must meet shorter deadlines and manage tightening budgets.

CLEAR Batch Services makes cleanup easier by standardizing and validating core data elements, including names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, National Provider Identifiers (NPIs), and Social Security numbers. It also taps external sources that can reveal risk signals such as anomalies and inconsistencies. CLEAR Batch Services cross-matches information from multiple data sources to help identify potential identity theft and synthetic identities.

The scale of data hygiene work can be enormous. When a federal healthcare agency set out to replace Social Security numbers on enrollee ID cards with randomly generated identifiers, it had to mail new cards to more than 60 million people. Even a small error rate risked putting cards in criminal hands, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in postage, and leaving patients without coverage. So, the agency launched a data hygiene project, checking each enrollee’s identity and last known address against external sources before a card went out.

After a 5,000-name pilot in which three vendors competed, the agency awarded the contract to Thomson Reuters, whose results were superior when checked by certified mail. Using CLEAR ID Confirm, a streamlined version of CLEAR, the agency received a simple yes-or-no answer on whether to mail each card, along with reason codes explaining every “no.” The process could verify up to three million names a week and typically returned batch results in 24 hours instead of the allotted 48. Agency and Thomson Reuters analysts then studied the reason codes together to find patterns and turn more “no” results into “yes” results, improving verification rates as the project progressed.

Best practices #3: Filling the gaps with enhanced data

Incomplete datasets make it much harder for agencies to locate subjects. CLEAR Batch Services fills those gaps by accessing high-quality data from numerous external sources. This allows agencies to conduct more successful outreach efforts. It also means fewer “return-to-sender” and “addressee unknown” notices on returned mail.

Here’s a real-life example of CLEAR Batch Services at work. A state health agency had millions of records across several databases. Many individuals appeared multiple times with different addresses and differently rendered names. In addition, much of the information was outdated or missing essential data points.

Using CLEAR Batch Services, the agency was able to reduce duplicates, identifying and connecting the same subject across databases. The platform also closed data gaps by gathering point-in-time counts of unsheltered individuals and current patient contact information.

In closing

Combined, the data management practices of consolidation, hygiene, and enhancement transform fragmented, outdated data into reliable agency information, but agencies need a solution built with that responsibility in mind. More specifically, a tool designed for authorized, vetted customers and permitted uses, with safeguards supporting controlled workflows and compliance requirements.

CLEAR Batch Services incorporates all three into its processes while also automating agency workflows. This not only helps agencies fulfill their mission to serve the public, particularly citizens who rely on government programs and services – it also makes it easier for agency staff to meet reporting mandates. These reports typically require agencies to track, audit, and submit recipient data, as well as financials and compliance metrics.

Those mandates are likely to become even more stringent. In March 2026, the White House established an anti-fraud task force that will require federal agencies overseeing SNAP, Medicaid, and housing support programs to submit vulnerability and prevention reports. The goals are to reduce fraud and ensure proper allocation.

Data quality is a strategic, organization-wide priority. And it’s not a one-time technical fix. By investing in the three core data management strategies, agencies can position themselves to meet evolving challenges. This will permit them to serve the public with the transparency, equity, and reliability they demand.

Learn more about how batch processing using Thomson Reuters CLEAR Batch Services can help agencies strengthen data quality across all government databases.

CLEAR Batch Services

Streamline your workflow with efficient, time-saving batch public records searching

Learn more ↗

Access to these tools is limited to authorized, vetted customers. 

Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a “consumer report” as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq.) (FCRA). The data provided to you through our products and services may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, housing, government benefits, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA.