$100+million audit finds $20 million in Medicaid fraud . . . Costs exceed results?
than it has recovered in overpayments, a government investigation found.
Since 2008, the government has spent $102 million on its Medicaid audit
program, which has only identified less than $20 million in overpayments,
according to a report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office.
The report found that close to two-thirds of 1,550 audits of state records were
characterized as “unproductive” by the GAO, as they identified $7.4 million in
possible Medicaid overpayments since 2008.
Peter Budetti, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' director of
program integrity, told Bloomberg News that audits conducted by 10 contractor
companies have been discontinued, while the remaining five contractors will be
dropped or reassigned.
Read More: http://www.mcknights.com/medicaid-claims-audits-co...
Among the crimes uncovered were doctors being offered financial incentives to bring in patients, falsifying diagnostic codes to increase reimbursements from Medicare and other government programs, and billing the government for unnecessary lab tests. The FBI kicked butt.
And who was also in the fraud mix? None other than Gov Rick Scott, who had to step down as CEO of Columbia/HCA after the hospital giant was fined $1.7 billion and found guilty of swindling the government.
This is TYPICAL of our broken system. The absolute corruption this evidences is a great visual for the Romney campaign it would seem.
This is a perfect example of government inefficiency. They are robbing us quicker than the actual robbers.