WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Medicaid fraud is costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and federal officials say recent cases in New York and Minnesota show why tougher enforcement is needed.<\/p>\n
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz told The National News Desk he visited Queens last week and saw examples of what he described as blatant abuse of the system. (TNND)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In New York City, federal agents raided adult day care centers as part of an investigation into alleged kickbacks, money laundering and billing for services that were never provided. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz told The National News Desk he visited Queens last week and saw examples of what he described as blatant abuse of the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went to Queens last week, and you see some of these images of the different investigations that we launched, we had a hundred different adult daycare centers approached by different members of law enforcement,\u201d Oz said.<\/p>\n
Oz described one location where, he said, the facility was billing Medicaid for patients using wheelchairs even though the building was not accessible. <\/p>\n
\u201cI walked in one of these places and I said, do you have people with wheelchairs coming to here? The guy said no. Well, it turns out they’re building us for a lot of patients with wheelchairs and you can’t even get in the place because of the stairs with a wheelchair,\u201d Oz said. He added that an ambulance service owned by the same company \u201cwas bilking us for lots of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oz also criticized what he described as schemes in which seniors are lured in with bribes and their Medicare numbers are then used to bill for services that are not actually delivered. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you allowing bribes to attract customers that then can be used with those Medicare numbers that they get from these customers to build the American people for tens of thousands of dollars of services for every person that aren’t being used,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s infuriating. We have to put an end to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Minnesota, an appeals court reinstated a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud conviction after a Democratic-appointed judge had tossed it out. The case involved billing for services that did not exist, and the money was apparently spent on luxury goods. Oz pointed to the Minnesota case as an example of why he believes enforcement must be consistent.<\/p>\n
Minnesota, you just covered, nothing good example. Law enforcement did the right thing. They prosecuted a case; a man had stolen seven-plus million dollars from Medicaid. And yet another judge comes in and overturns the jury,\u201d Oz said. <\/p>\n
He said the appeals court threw out the judge\u2019s rejection of the verdict.<\/p>\n
Oz said CMS is increasing scrutiny before money is paid out, describing a strategy of double-checking and triple-checking claims. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are telling everybody that the money is not leaving the building,\u201d he said, adding that the approach is \u201csaving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oz also said CMS is coordinating with other federal agencies when it identifies suspected fraud. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can send that information to both the Department of Justice; I can also send it to the IRS,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause here’s the story, if you steal from poor people, you’re probably not paying your taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discussion also turned to rural health care funding. Oz said states are receiving the first round of the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Funds, averaging about $200 million each, and he predicted voters would see results quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoters are gonna see the benefits immediately. The money was sent out from Washington,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Oz said the funding is aimed at broader changes beyond keeping hospitals open, including telemedicine, improved medical records, and training more doctors and nurses. He said the money \u201chad to go out by the end of this week,\u201d and he argued it will help \u201cimprove their life expectancy\u201d and \u201cre-invigorate these parts of our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Medicaid fraud is costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and federal officials say recent cases in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-386164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}