FWA- Ohio Medicaid ripped off for millions, and counties could have stopped it, auditor says

MM Curator summary

The article below has been highlighted and summarized by our research team. It is provided here for member convenience as part of our Curator service.

 
 

[MM Curator Summary]: States (and their counties) continue to not use the fraud fighting tools available to them.

 
 

 
 

Clipped from: https://www.13abc.com/2022/12/13/ohio-medicaid-ripped-off-millions-counties-could-have-stopped-it-auditor-says/

 
 

A report from the Ohio Auditor of State found that county offices are not reacting to alerts, that Medicaid recipients may be getting payments and benefits from multiple states.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) –The Ohio Auditor of State released a report Tuesday looking into Ohio Medicaid recipients who have been getting payments and or benefits, from multiple states which is not allowed.

Auditor Keith Faber says counties, who sign up and review Medicaid recipients had been getting alerts from the federal level when people were identified as “double dippers.”

Alerts are sent to each county by a program called Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS), a monitoring program aimed to catch people enrolled in multiple states.

Since following the alerts in July of 2022, the auditor’s office claims 59% of the alerts were not acted upon meaning several Ohio Medicaid recipients continued to get benefits from multiple states.

According to the report, failure to act cost Ohio and taxpayers somewhere between $5.3 million and $24.5 million annually.

“There continue to be ongoing oversight issues in Ohio’s Medicaid programs that should have been addressed,” Auditor Faber said. “It’s past time to deal with these problems.”

There are approximately 2.9 million Ohioans enrolled in Medicaid who are lower income residents, older adults, individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, infants and children, and others.

According to a news release from the auditor’s office, “Tuesday’s report follows a separate audit released in January 2022 that found the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) failed to recoup more than $118.5 million in erroneous duplicate payments or improperly paid for the managed care of prison inmates and deceased residents over a three-year period.”