Long Island officials push bill to force state to let them handle Medicaid fraud tips

It’s not like the Empire State’s gonna do it themselves!Top Suffolk County Republicans are pushing a bill that would force the state to share Medicaid fraud tips with local governments and prosecutors so they could investigate the claims themselves.Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, District Attorney Ray Tierney and other local officials stood with state Sen.Dean Murray Thursday in Hauppauge as he introduced the bill — and a related piece of legislation that would offer a cash reward to whistleblowers who help convict fraudsters.“We need to crack down on those who are cheating and stealing from the system and we need to fund all local efforts, and saying if you help recover money from a fraudster, you’re entitled to keep some of that money, so that we send a very clear message,” Romaine told reporters at a news conference in the H Lee Dennison municipal building.“You want to cheat the public? You want to steal from the poor? You want to enrich yourself? 
We’re coming for you,” Romaine said.The Empire State’s $110 billion Medicaid program spends more per-resident than any other state while ranking last in fraud convictions related to the program nationwide — a gap that Romaine and the other officials argued shows that the state’s system has no real oversight as Medicaid costs soar. “When you steal money from this program, you steal it from the very people that would benefit from this program — that’s why the cost in New York is twice the cost of Texas and California combined,” Romaine said. The problem, officials said, is that Medicaid fraud tips to the state are not shared with local authorities, leaving any potential investigations up to New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, whose office is busy probing “the big fish” while smaller schemers slip through the cracks.James’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has recovered over $627 million during her tenure, mostly due to a small number of large seizures, accordin...