Medicaid fraud in California is far worse than you think

If there’s a ground zero for Medicaid fraud in America, Los Angeles is giving Minneapolis a run for its money.Six months after news broke of massive Medicaid theft in Minnesota’s largest city, it’s now clear that fraud is just as rampant in the California metropolis, if not worse. The Trump administration announced this month that 800 Los Angeles hospice and home health providers — which heavily depend on Medicaid dollars — have been suspended from federal funding.The administration says that half the city’s hospices are fraudulent, which isn’t hard to believe. About a third of all hospice providers in America are in Los Angeles County, despite the county having less than 3% of the national population. Also telling: After those 800 providers were banned from federal funding, fewer than 20 asked the Trump administration to reconsider.Why aren’t the other 780-plus complaining?Whether it’s Los Angeles or Minneapolis, the scope and scale of Medicaid fraud is truly breathtaking. But the bigger issue is that such unbelievable levels of fraud are overshadowing the merely massive fraud that exists almost everywhere else.

Put simply, Medicaid theft is a nationwide phenomenon.Consider the information that our organization has obtained from states in recent months. We asked every state to tell us how they’re complying with the federal requirement to revalidate their Medicaid providers at least once every five years.Those that have responded are failing this basic test of good government, which is crucial for rooting out fraud.We found that in Illinois, more than a quarter of the state’s Medicaid providers haven’t been reviewed in the past five years. In one case, the state failed to revalidate a Medicaid provider for nearly 10 years. In Michigan and Georgia, the state is only checking about 10% of providers a year.

But that makes it impossible to review 100% every five years. This is an obvious invitation to fraud, and it almost certain...