Dr. Oz goes after five states in Medicaid fraud crackdown
The Trump administration’s offensive against fraud is focused on five states: Minnesota, California, Florida, New York and Maine, with more to come.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said he has written letters to states, looking at programs such as Medicaid and hospice.
Dr. Oz suspects foreign governments of involvement in fraudulent schemes, including a Russian mob presence in Los Angeles and a Chinese mob presence in the Flushing, Queens, neighborhood of New York, and possibly the Cuban government in South Florida, he told Fox News.
Federal authorities have suspended 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area over suspected Medicare fraud after reporting an unusually high concentration of providers in the area with unusually high survival rates.
“We also began to notice that some people who were probably not reputable doctors were being assigned to supervise patients at several hospices,” Dr. Oz said. “Many hospitals were foreign-owned, or they were able to cheat by keeping their membership numbers low enough to not have to report their results. »
He previously directed all 50 states to identify and remove noncompliant Medicaid providers, setting a 10-business-day deadline in April for governors to commit to rapid “revalidation” of high-risk providers.
“We can audit states that do not want to comply with the revalidation request,” he said.
The Anti-Fraud Task Force is led by Vice Chairman JD Vance, who works closely with Dr. Oz and CMS. The Vice President previously announced a nationwide moratorium on new Medicare enrollments for specific durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies, targeting seven key provider types. The six-month pause is aimed at combating more than $1.5 billion in alleged fraudulent billing.
