When I testify on Capitol Hill, I’ll be addressing the fact that my home state of Ohio is not immune to the sophisticated fraud and abuse plaguing Medicaid and other government programs nationally.Wherever there are big government programs backed by big government spending, there will be people who find ways to exploit loopholes and lax controls to fill their own pocketbooks.Left unaddressed by the state bureaucracies, these weaknesses invite outside manipulation and erode public trust.The crimes are even worse when they affect the most vulnerable among us, taking resources for programs that serve truly needy residents.VANCE-LED TASK FORCE CUTS OFF $1.4B FROM HOME HEALTH, HOSPICE PROVIDERS SUSPECTED OF FRAUDI’ve been sounding the alarm about Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse since becoming Ohio’s Auditor of State in 2019.
I’m thankful more people are taking notice and voicing a commitment to addressing the misuse of tax dollars.The Ohio Department of Medicaid makes up the biggest part of the state’s biennial budget, with about $40 billion annually in the state general fund and federal funding directed to health care and related programming for about 2.9 million lower-income residents, older adults, individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, infants and children, and others.It’s a large, complex program administered (often inconsistently) with confusing rules and ample system and human error.Year after year, my office has pointed out issues in the Medicaid system and error rates that are likely leading to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in potential fraud, waste and abuse. Consider:Most recently, the annual State Single Audit reported an error rate of 15.6% for payments made for services for residents who had died or were otherwise ineligible for Medicaid programming, meaning potential unallowable costs of $800 million to $4.4 billion.
That’s not including the dozens of other Medicaid provider audits we’ve conducted that have included...