HHS OIG Issues Report on Failure of Medicaid Managed Care Plans to Report Provider Fraud
Per the notice below, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a report on the failure of many Medicaid managed care plans to report instances of potential health care provider fraud.
Some
Medicaid Managed Care Plans Made Few or No Referrals of Potential Provider
Fraud (OEI-03-22-00410)
Medicaid managed care plans are required to identify and refer potential fraud,
waste, or abuse—including provider fraud—to State Medicaid agencies and/or
Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) for further investigation and enforcement. One objective of this report was to determine the number of referrals of
potential provider fraud, waste, or abuse that plans made to State Medicaid
agencies, MFCUs, or other entities in 2022. Ten percent of surveyed plans
reported that they did not make any provider referrals that year. Of the plans
that reported making provider referrals in 2022, more than half made two or
fewer referrals per 10,000 enrollees. HHS OIG: 1) recommends that the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services follow up with States that had Medicaid
managed care plans with no provider referrals in 2022; and 2) encourages States
to increase the number of Medicaid managed care plans that have received
State-led training on the fraud referral process.