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House considers increasing Medicaid fraud enforcement

A Medicaid fraud recovery bill has gotten initial approval from the House of Representatives. The bill would permit the state to investigate Medicaid fraud by medical providers and recipients without involving the federal government… Currently investigations only go forward when the federal government decides to investigate.

Representative Elaine Harvey says the bill is necessary to recover millions of dollars for the state.

“What happens today is that if Medicaid fraud is discovered is that the federal government gets to recover their portion, but the state does not,” says Harvey. “So what we’re trying to do is get the state to be able to recover the damages from people who overbill Medicaid.”  

Representative Keith Gingery says this bill is in addition to any criminal penalties that may be levied.

“This is just dealing with civil penalties,” Gingery says. “So that the person gets their criminal prosecution against them, now the state’s going to come back for the double whammy and actually get money out of them, a bunch of money.”

The bill will be debated two more times. 

Irina Zhorov is a reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Wyoming. In between, she worked as a photographer and writer for Philadelphia-area and national publications. Her professional interests revolve around environmental and energy reporting and she's reported on mining issues from Wyoming, Mexico, and Bolivia. She's been supported by the Dick and Lynn Cheney Grant for International Study, the Eleanor K. Kambouris Grant, and the Social Justice Research Center Research Grant for her work on Bolivian mining and Uzbek alpinism. Her work has appeared on Voice of America, National Native News, and in Indian Country Today, among other publications.
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