# Palavir - Data Analytics & AI Consulting

> AI, analytics, and the data engineering that makes them work, for organizations with no in-house data team. Founded and delivered by Josh Elberg, 15 years in enterprise data (PLI, MRM, Merkle, Home Depot). Based in metro Detroit, serving nationally. Engagements run from a single paid discovery day to multi-month builds. Also the publisher of "The State of Fraud in America," 70+ pages analyzing $1.07 trillion in annual fraud across 402 datasets from 33+ federal sources.

## About

Palavir LLC is an AI and analytics consultancy founded by Josh Elberg in February 2026, based in metro Detroit and serving clients nationally. Josh does the work himself: there is no bench and no handoff to juniors.

Background: 15 years in enterprise data before founding Palavir. Senior Director of Data Transformation at Practising Law Institute (led a team of 7), Director of Performance & Analytics at MRM, Associate Director of Data Strategy at Merkle, BI Manager at Nuwell, and 7+ years in analytics at The Home Depot. MBA, Athabasca University.

## Who Palavir is for

The qualifier is not company size, it is whether anyone's full-time job is building the data layer underneath your reporting. Usually nobody's is. Engagements have run at organizations from roughly 150 people up to multi-billion-dollar operators. The common pattern is analysts who know the business well and no one to build the pipelines, models, and reporting they need.

Typical triggers: someone spends a full day a week assembling a report by hand; a month-end close is keyed in manually; two systems do not talk to each other; leadership wants AI but has no defined use case; a migration left reporting broken.

## How engagements work

1. Start with a paid discovery day. Fixed fee, no proposal cycle. You keep the findings whether or not the work continues.
2. Then build in milestones. Each piece is scoped, approved, and paid for before the next one starts.
3. One person from the first call to the last delivery.

Engagements have ranged from a single day to multi-month builds.

## Services

- Business intelligence and reporting (Power BI, Tableau, semantic models, DAX)
- Data engineering and pipelines (Azure, Microsoft Fabric, SQL, Python)
- AI and LLM implementation, and workflow automation
- CRM implementation and pricing/quoting automation
- KPI frameworks, executive reporting, and data governance
- Fractional data leadership and AI readiness assessment
- Corporate AI training and workshops

## Representative engagements (anonymized)

- HQ holding company of a multi-state auto-dealership group: a fixed-fee onsite discovery day for 12 HQ analysts closing the month by hand in Excel, then a 90-day plan for an Azure SQL canonical store, a Functions-based extraction pipeline, and a custom Next.js analytics cockpit behind Entra SSO. Deliberately not a lakehouse, so the in-house team can operate it after handoff.
- Multi-site textile and industrial materials distributor: mid-migration from a legacy AS/400 to a cloud ERP with no reporting on either. Built the semantic models and three live hourly-refresh reports into the client's own Power BI workspace, plus a 28-page guidebook so their team can extend them.
- Multi-location specialty metals distributor: implemented Pipedrive with a custom automation layer that converts square footage to sheets, applies tiered pricing, and reprices open quotes against a live aluminum commodity feed, over a clean region taxonomy for 715 customer organizations.
- Counsel on a healthcare False Claims Act matter: a confidential case-intelligence platform consolidating federal billing and enrollment data into expert-ready output.

## Tools and platforms

Power BI, Tableau, Microsoft Fabric, Azure (SQL, Functions, Entra), AWS, GCP, BigQuery, Redshift, PostgreSQL, Supabase, DuckDB, Python, R, SQL, TypeScript, Next.js, Pipedrive, Copilot Studio, Claude.

## Key Pages

- Homepage: https://palavir.co
- Consulting: https://palavir.co/consulting
- Training: https://palavir.co/training
- About: https://palavir.co/about
- Blog: https://palavir.co/blog
- AI Scorecard: https://palavir.co/tools/ai-scorecard

## Products by Palavir

- SkipEntry (skipentry.com) -- AI invoice extraction for bookkeepers
- Brighten (hellobrighten.com) -- Employee peer recognition platform
- FindGrants (findgrants.io) -- Grant matching SaaS with 46K+ grants indexed
- GovBids (govcontractdata.com) -- Government contract intelligence
- NewFilings (newfilingalerts.com) -- New business filing alerts across 7+ states
- OnePageAudit (onepageaudit.com) -- ADA/WCAG accessibility scanner
- Area Recon (arearecon.com) -- B2B lead intelligence
- BuzzwordBingo (buzzwordbingo.net) -- Meeting bingo game

## Fraud Report: The State of Fraud in America

70+ pages of analysis. 402 JSON datasets from 33+ federal sources. All data CC-BY-4.0 licensed.

### Hub & Methodology
- [Overview](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america): Hub page with fraud pyramid and 52 investigation links
- [Methodology & Data Downloads](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/methods): Full methodology, 15 Python scripts, downloadable JSON files
- [Evidence Summary](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/evidence-summary): Consolidated evidence for whistleblower attorney review
- [Recommendations](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/recommendations): 16 actionable fraud prevention recommendations

### Tax & Government Revenue
- [Tax Gap](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/tax-gap): $696B IRS tax gap analysis, audit rates collapsed 68% since 2010
- [Farm Subsidies](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/farm-subsidies): $478B in farm subsidies (1995-2024), 78% flows to top 10% of recipients

### Healthcare Fraud
- [Healthcare Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/healthcare): 1.38M Medicare Part D prescribers, 380 matched OIG exclusion list
- [Medicare Upcoding](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/upcoding): 73,245 of 481K providers flagged for billing anomalies, $786M excess
- [Medicaid Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/medicaid): 5,743 MFCU convictions (FY2020-2024), $6.4B recovered
- [Telehealth Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/telehealth-fraud): COVID telehealth expansion created $6.1B+ in fraud
- [Opioid Networks](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/opioid-networks): 796,960 opioid prescribers mapped using 11 years of CMS data
- [Pharma Payments](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/pharma-payments): CMS Open Payments cross-referenced with Medicare prescribing
- [Pharma Prescribing](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/pharma-prescribing): 10,437 doctors, $131.5M in pharma payments, opioid overlap
- [Healthcare Convergence](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/healthcare-convergence): Where opioids, exclusions, nursing homes, and Medicare outliers converge
- [Hospital M-Score](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/hospital-mscore): 5,428 hospitals scored, 1,805 flagged across $398B in revenue
- [Predictive Model](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/predictive-model): GradientBoosting trained on 82,749 OIG exclusions matched against 1.26M providers

### Nursing Homes
- [Nursing Home Quality](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/nursing-homes): 14,703 facilities, $471M in fines, 418K health citations, 70% understaffed
- [PE Nursing Homes](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/pe-nursing-homes): Private equity chains show lower ratings, higher fines, lower staffing
- [Nursing Home COVID](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/nursing-home-covid): PE-owned chains took 1.7x more PPP per facility

### COVID Relief Fraud
- [PPP Loans](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/ppp): 968K loans analyzed with Isolation Forest, $32.4B flagged
- [COVID Stacking](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/covid-stacking): $4.67T across 10+ programs, 113,836 entities received both PPP and EIDL
- [COVID Fraud Timeline](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/covid-fraud-timeline): $4.67T disbursed with minimal checks, fraud signals from day one
- [Double-Dipping](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/double-dipping): 38 companies got PPP while winning billions in federal contracts
- [SBA Lending](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/sba-lending): 1,018,130 SBA loans, $486B approved, $6.3B charged off

### Corporate & Financial Fraud
- [Corporate M-Score](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/corporate): Beneish M-Score on 6,088 company-years, 36 flagged, 5 of top 10 confirmed
- [Corporate Distress](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/corporate-distress): M-Score anomalies cross-referenced with SEC insider trading
- [Bankruptcy Prediction](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/bankruptcy-prediction): 36 M-Score flagged companies tracked against bankruptcy outcomes
- [SEC Enforcement](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/sec-enforcement): $29.1B in remedies across 3,852 actions (FY2020-FY2025)
- [Bank Failures](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/bank-failures): 573 US banks failed since 2000, 7 early warning indicators
- [CFPB Bank Failures](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/cfpb-bank-failures): Did consumer complaints predict bank failures? 60 failed banks analyzed

### Consumer Fraud
- [Consumer Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/consumer): FBI IC3, FTC Sentinel, CFPB, DOJ data, $56B+ recovered since 2000
- [Cybercrime](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/cybercrime): $16.6B in FBI IC3 losses (2024), investment fraud, BEC, ransomware
- [Identity Theft](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/identity-theft): 1.1M+ FTC reports, $11B in losses, synthetic identities
- [Insurance Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/insurance-fraud): $308.6B stolen annually across auto, property, workers comp
- [Elder Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/elder-fraud): Seniors lost $4.9B to cybercrime plus $3.1B to identity theft in 2024
- [CFPB Complaints](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/cfpb-complaints): 14M+ consumer complaints, resolution quality, repeat offenders

### Labor & Workplace
- [Wage Theft](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/wage-theft): 363K DOL enforcement actions, $4.5B recovered, exceeds all property crime
- [Workplace Safety](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/workplace-safety): 5,283 worker deaths in 2023, 1,850 OSHA inspectors for 8M worksites

### Government Spending & Contracts
- [Government Contracts](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/government-contracts): 11M+ federal contracts, single-bid rates, cost overruns, risk scores
- [Grant Flows](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/grant-flows): $16B+ in foundation grants, 44 foundations cross-referenced with nonprofits

### Campaign Finance & Politics
- [Campaign Finance](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/campaign-finance): FEC 2023-2024 cycle, structuring detection, straw donors, shell committees
- [Pay-to-Play](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/pay-to-play): 55.5M FEC contributions cross-referenced with 11M+ federal contracts
- [Donor Regulation](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/donor-regulation): Do industries that donate more face lighter enforcement?

### Nonprofits & Education
- [Nonprofit 990 Analysis](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/nonprofit): IRS 990 data scored with 6 fraud-detection ratios
- [Private Foundations](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/private-foundations): 45 major foundations analyzed using real IRS 990-PF data
- [For-Profit Colleges](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/for-profit-colleges): 2,355 schools, $30K median earnings vs $42K public, 82% sub-50% repayment

### Environmental & Housing
- [Environmental Violations](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/environmental): 503,525+ EPA facilities, $1.2B in FY2025 penalties
- [Housing Fraud](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/housing-fraud): HUD OIG, FHA mortgage fraud, Section 8 abuse, 443K+ CFPB complaints

### Enforcement & Whistleblowers
- [DOJ Enforcement](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/enforcement): 308 DOJ press releases, sentencing trends, geographic patterns
- [Whistleblower Awards](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/whistleblower): $101.6B recovered, healthcare is 83% of False Claims Act recoveries
- [Repeat Offenders](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/repeat-offenders): Entities in 3+ federal enforcement databases

### Cross-Cutting Analysis
- [Cross-Dataset](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/cross): 7 novel correlations across PPP, healthcare, corporate, consumer fraud
- [Geographic Hotspots](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/geography): 11 federal datasets by geography, composite fraud density scores for all states
- [Proven Patterns](https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/proven-patterns): 10 DOJ/SEC cases tested against our models, 90% flagged pre-action

## Data

- 402 JSON datasets from 33+ federal sources (SEC, CMS, SBA, FDIC, FEC, IRS, FBI, DOJ, EPA, OSHA, FTC, HUD, CFPB, and more)
- All data CC-BY-4.0 licensed
- Methodology: https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/methods
- Data downloads: https://palavir.co/data/fraud-in-america/methods

## Contact

- Website: https://palavir.co
- Email: josh@palavir.co
- Location: Southeast Michigan
- Founder: Josh Elberg