Minnesota state employees will re-examine thousands of Medicaid service providers in the latest effort to fight fraud and prevent the federal government from withholding critical funds.
In an “unprecedented” push, the state will be revalidating more than 5,800 organizations that are enrolled to provide services through Medicaid-funded programs identified as high-risk for fraud, Minnesota Medicaid Director John Connolly said.
“Right now we need to pull out all the stops and assure ourselves, and the people of Minnesota, that the providers of these services are qualified and eligible to carry out their work,” Connolly said during a Feb. 2 update on state efforts to combat fraud.
Federal prosecutors have said billions of dollars may have been lost to fraud in 14 high-risk social services programs, one of which has been shut down.
The revalidation process for providers in those programs includes reviews of their documentation and background studies of owners and on-site screenings.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services is attempting to assemble 168 additional staff members from across state government to help conduct the unannounced visits to providers. The agency is racing to complete all the checks by the end of May. Typically high-risk providers are revalidated at least once every three years.
The revalidations are a major part of a corrective action plan the state sent to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Connolly said.
Federal officials previously said the corrective action plan the state submitted in December was inadequate.
