Charles Munger, vice-chairman at Berkshire Hathaway, once gave a speech touting the importance of incentives in guiding human behavior.

He told the story of Xerox, who introduced a new and far superior machine to its customers, only to find that it was being outsold by its outdated and obsolete predecessor. Company founder Joe Wilson investigated the situation and found the problem. The sales team received higher commission bonuses on the older machines.

He also told the story of FedEx who in the early days of the company struggled to efficiently sort and move packages between its planes each night so they would be prepared to ship the next morning. The company, Munger claimed, tried everything to get the system to work more smoothly, but to no avail. Then finally, someone got the bright idea of paying employees by the shift, and letting them leave once their work was done, rather than paying them by the hour. With the incentive to finish quickly so they could leave early, the employees dramatically increased their efficiency.

Munger summed up the lesson with a maxim from Ben Franklin, “If you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.”

As a whistleblower attorney, spotting motives and understanding incentives is very important. It not only helps in developing a case against a defendant, defining motive, opportunity and means. It also helps me to understand why whistleblowers choose to put their careers and livelihoods on the line to expose corporate wrongdoing.

I wish I could tell you that every whistleblower was motivated solely by a desire to make the world a better place. But like Franklin said, don’t look to reason, look to interest and incentives. The truth is that many whistleblowers are also motivated by the tremendous financial rewards available to those who recover significant funds for the government.

The cold hard truth is if we want to give more potential whistleblowers a reason to step forward and shine the light of public scrutiny on fraud, one of the things we need to do is improve the rewards programs available to them.

That’s why I was very excited to hear that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) recently announced a proposed change to the rules of its whistleblower program. The program, administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), previously awarded a maximum of $1,000 to whistleblowers who exposed fraud in Medicare. The proposed new rule would increase that reward up to a maximum of nearly $10 million.

The proposed rule follows a number of other initiatives taken by the DHHS and CMS over the last several years to reduce Medicare fraud; steps that I applaud. Those steps are having a serious impact – last February the government reported that it recovered a record-breaking $4.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2011.

Despite the positive steps that have been taken, there is still a lot of fraud that goes unpunished. While estimates vary, the Government Accountability Office pegged losses in the program at nearly $50 billion, far larger than the government’s recoveries.

I hope and believe that the DHHS’ decision to expand rewards for whistleblowers will have a serious impact on closing that gap and returning money to taxpayers.

As a whistleblower attorney, I have some parting advice for potential whistleblowers under the expanded program.

Whistleblowers under this program, and other programs, should seek experienced legal counsel before moving forward with a formal tip to DHHS. A whistleblower attorney can make sure you know your rights and responsibilities as a whistleblower, as well as the risks of proceeding with a formal whistleblower complaint.

An attorney with experience prosecuting whistleblower cases can also help you develop your information to encourage the government to take action. DHHS will receive many more tips than the agency can fully investigate in the next several years; you want to make sure your information is actionable and credible.