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06-18-2012, 03:06 PM
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The government's cost-effective" approach to finding fraud.....
And stimulates "job creation":
"WASHINGTON -- An audit program designed to detect Medicaid fraud cost about five times as much to administer as the amount of fraud it detected, a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found.
Medicaid has spent about $102 million in auditing costs since 2008, but has identified less than $20 million in over-payments, GAO investigators found.
"In many ways, these programs resemble a funnel through which significant federal and state resources are being poured in and limited results are trickling out," Ann Maxwell, a regional inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in prepared testimony delivered during a congressional hearing this past week.
Up until 2005, states were in charge of rooting out fraud in their Medicaid programs. However, a federal law that year created the Medicaid Integrity Group, and the federal government began hiring contractors to conduct Medicaid audits.
The GAO report found that the audits rarely uncovered fraud, especially when they used data from the Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS), which lacks crucial information, such as provider names. Without a healthcare provider's name, it is difficult to target fraud investigations....."
This is NOT to say that fraud should not be investigated and stamped out. People do need to consider however, how the federal government handles money.....and incentivizes consumer and voter behavior.
Medical News: Medicaid Fraud Detection Comes at High Price - in Washington-Watch, Washington Watch from MedPage Today
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